How to become a designer. The main mistake and the necessary skills. Personal experience of employees Mail.Ru Group, Badoo, Trood

Bad design kills. Good makes life easier. Brilliant - changes the world. Classical education will never rush to the speed of development of the industry. Beginners find it difficult to jump on this train. But you can. Over the past two years I have visited dozens of conferences, talked with designers of leading companies, worked on several projects and found similarities in the development of many specialists. Personal experience was added to the knowledge gained and as a result I got the material that I wanted to read three years ago.

Main mistake

The main mistake of novice designers is to forget what design is.

The design is invisible.
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It is difficult to describe it with a screenshot or paste it into the mocap. This is not a picture or file. You are aware of a good design, only when faced with a bad one. Because design is the solution .

I didn’t understand it right away, because, like many, I was fascinated by the visual part, instead of completing the task, that is, solving the client’s problem and simplifying the user's life.

The head of the portal design team Mail.Ru Group, Yuri Vetrov, supported this idea:

“The main mistake of novice designers is to focus on drawing screens instead of thinking about the big picture (business problems, interaction scenarios and user expectations).”

It is always useful to listen to the ideas of the client, but you have the right to do everything differently, if it simplifies the use of the product.

“People don’t know what they want until they show it to them” - Steve Jobs.



I remember how I went shopping Zara, Reebok, Nike unsuccessfully for two days in search of simple but modern shoes. Then I first went to Lacoste and immediately found what I wanted. In such stores things are simple, high-quality and their design does not change depending on fashion. Appearance evolves, but the design consistently solves one problem with which I also encountered - the search for simple, high-quality and stylish shoes.

The basic principles of design are applicable in any industry. It is not so important what the trend is now. If you solved the problem, and your interface is not depressing, you did everything right.

Interestingly, when I asked what other mistakes beginners make, Yuri replied:

"Thoughtless use (or non-use) of patterns, because they are always good for one and bad for another task"

A similar thought was expressed by the product designer at Badoo Pavel Shumakov:

“Novice designers are trying to do everything at once by the rules. But until you understand what you are doing, thinking about the modular grid, the icons do not make sense. Try different options, remove all unnecessary, experiment. It’s better to start with chaos and restore order than the other way around. ”

How to avoid the main mistake?

A well-designed design process eliminates common mistakes and contributes to insights, the significance of which is very high.

My design process, based on personal experience and course from Tilda Publishing, is as follows:

- Learning task . I draw simple diagrams to visually describe the task. I am trying to identify the main tasks and problems faced by the user. I focus on this and refine the scheme. Most often this is the mind map;
- Research . I look at the collected collections on Pinterest, looking for similar work on Dribbble, I find the sites of companies whose product is similar to the task. I think that can be applied to my task. By the end of the study in the head there are already several options for implementation. It remains to choose the right one;
- Solution . I like to make sketches of the interface on A4 sheets. I do from 3 to 20. I start with a general vision of the interface, and then I see whether it is convenient for the implementation of all functions.
- Layout . In Sketch, I implement the selected interface. I'm taking a break. After looking with fresh eyes. I make changes. I think how it can be done differently. I do. I compare. If necessary, go back to step 3;
- Feedback . Showing work and making changes.

The main skills of a novice designer

Masterly possession of Photoshop or Sketch will not make a beginner a professional. Yes, and professionals should not forget about a few things that I emphasized from communication, articles, courses and personal experience.

Development (ongoing) . The designer knows how to solve a problem in many ways, because he has looked at hundreds of works. This will help design resources like Dribbble, Awwards and blogs of design studios. Collect the works you like in collections on Pinterest, sorting by type (Mobile Profile, Media, etc.).

Process Follow the algorithm. But experiment. Everything can always be improved;

Tools . Now there are a lot of them. Virtually any of the ready-made layouts can assemble a prototype or make an animation. Beginners do not need to be sprayed. First study Sketch or Photoshop, and then go on to others;

Base . Colors. Typography. Grid. Need to know. At the start, at least superficially. Internet, articles, courses will help.

What to do right now

Practice is the best way to master a profession. At the start, it is important to recruit a portfolio, even from fictional tasks. A well-thought-out solution, even if it is one, will greatly help in promotion.

The following plan will help you to make the first thorough step:

1. Set the task. Take an outdated site or create your own. Write down the task as if the client gave it to you;
2. Highlight the main elements. Decide what blocks will be on the site (menu, content, photos, etc.);
3. Find at least five sites with a similar structure. Think which sites are similar in structure to yours. If your goal is to make a sports site, then you can take as an example the news. If this is a landing page, then look at land-book.com;
4. Design a single screen. Paper and pen are all you need. Sketch a few options for the location of elements. Now you have experience, as you have viewed many similar sites. Choose one option that you think is better performing the main task;
5. In Sketch or Photoshop, implement the drawing. Do not dwell immediately on the flowers. First make it black and white. Then add an accent color to the links and buttons. Pay attention to the size of elements, text, as well as line spacing. A badly crafted text is striking;
6. Find a designer on Facebook and ask him to comment on your design. Listening to criticism is difficult, but useful. Paul says the same thing:

“Often a novice designer is criticized by the same designers and often the usefulness of such comments is not very high. You need to learn how to filter what they say and write to you, otherwise you will never hear perhaps small, important remarks from the whole mess. ”

Conclusion

Is design a talent? I dont know. But I know for sure that if I hadn’t looked through hundreds of works, hadn’t read dozens of articles and completed several projects, I wouldn’t have been in the place of a product designer. If you intend to become a designer, be prepared that the first works will be terrible. Modify them. See examples and think about why others succeeded and you did not. Correct. Practice again and sometime you take a look at your work and say "This is cool."

Thanks to Pavel Shumakov and Yuri Vetrov for comments. We will all win if the Russian-speaking design community develops. And it depends only on us.