How to work with designers

Memo for engineers and project managers.

Once, a long time ago, I was a product manager. Then I was an engineer.
The last seven years I have been designing. And every day I work with engineers and managers. Every day I find new ways to assess the responsibility and skill of each of the pillars on which product development rests.
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To speak the language of designers, stop talking about indicators, talking about users.

In most cases, these things do not really differ. For example, you can talk about setting a goal to optimize the conversion level on the registration page by X%. In other words, you are trying to remove barriers that make it difficult for users to subscribe to your service. You see, the language is important here: “to make user registration easier”, against “to optimize the level of conversion of user registration”. The first approach is about value for the end user. The other focuses on the needs of the company. Most designers think and work from the user's point of view.

Other translations:

Can we increase the click rate on this button? => How can we make sure that users know about this nice new feature that is so easy to use?
This innovation should not reduce the performance => Make sure that users are still just doing what they want.
Let's pump up the viral coefficient => Take care that people who like this feature share it with friends.

Designers have different strengths, they should be applied to the right problems.

Designers are different. Even "star" designers have different approaches to problems. All because the design includes many areas:

1. Visual design: typography, contrasts, hierarchy, and good old “looks good?” Fall into this category. Does the look fall on the right things? Are the details clear or intricate? And more importantly: does visual design work as a single system?
2. Interaction Design: Is it easy for the user to do X? Is the navigation system reliable? Is the application intuitive?
3. Product Design: Has the problem been solved successfully? Is the product helpful? Is he clear? Does it have value?

Some designers are awesome in visualization, but not as experienced in designing interaction. Others brilliantly understand the product strategy, but weaker in design performance. There are incredibly complex problems in each design area, and the right designers working on the problems that fit their skills are crucial. You cannot replace one designer with another and wait for the same result. In general, you need everything for a strong design. If you have only one designer in the team, it is better that he combines all the skills in himself, and not be good in any one area of ​​design. If you have a design team, then highly specialized designers can work in it.

The higher the designer’s level, the more abstract the problem he has to solve.

To find out more, let's look at some examples of levels and their corresponding tasks:

Designer - Level 1: Create a form that allows people to edit their profiles. Extremely transparent - it is assumed that there is a profile, and the solution will be the form.

Designer - Level 2: Create a great interface for editing a profile. The solution can be a form, a built-in editor that immediately displays the changes, a modal window.

Designer - level 3 (general): create a common system for editing profiles, posts, settings, etc. Now it is not just about profiles, but about an editing system that must be flexible enough to work throughout the application.

Designer - Level 3 (in-depth): think of a way to “get” users to update their profiles. In this work, there are questions that the designer asks: why should users update their profile? And when? And how best to convey a value proposition?

Designer - Level 4: Develop a solution to enhance the authenticity of users of the application. Perhaps editing a profile is not at all important for your ultimate goal; perhaps the end-to-end control system will be more efficient and effective.

Designer - level 5: identify the biggest problem in the application / company / website and develop a solution. At the highest level, the best designers control the vision of the product.

In other words, the senior designer will generate ideas and solutions if he feels a deep understanding of the product concept and strategy. Conversely, if the senior designer receives a lower level task (for example, “create a form”), and at the same time understands that form is a completely wrong way to solve a problem, the designer will probably be unhappy. This stress causes many disciplinary problems with design: the higher the designer’s level, the more frustrated he will experience if he does not agree with the vision or strategy of the product.

The more time a designer spends with other designers, the better the work (and the designer)

Criticism and a medium for the exchange of experience between designers are one of the most important and effective tools for progress. If a designer works alone and never shows his work to other designers, it is almost guaranteed that his work will not be as strong as if he regularly received feedback from other designers.

Much of what designers value and what they strive for in their work is difficult to measure.
This is due to the fact that the purpose of the designer is a qualitative experience, not only from one side of the application, but throughout the full life journey, not only in a short period of time, but also in the future. As an example, let's talk about trash. Everyone agrees that tons of trash is bad. But at what point does something called “too much trash” appear? It is impossible to quantify. It is unlikely that one additional detail will cause your users to scatter. But slowly, like ocean waves eroding rocky cliff, these add-ons are piling up until one day your users start to consider your site cluttered. Then another application appears that will be new and simple, while still solving the same problem as your application. But then it will be too late.

Similarly, designers often insist on consistency between different parts of an application or system. This may seem overly meticulous in terms of each function: if the stream for uploading photos is consistent, isn’t that enough?
The problem is that users do not just upload photos. They probably also upload videos. And if the ways to upload photos and videos are noticeably different and designed in isolation, this is confusing. Users will probably have difficulty uploading photos and videos. Imagine that the File menu would be in a different place for each application — sometimes in the upper left corner, sometimes in the upper right corner, or at the bottom, or somewhere else. It would be a nightmare.

Although sometimes the designer loses an understanding of what is really important. Designers tend to overestimate the experience of individuals and underestimate the human or network experience. Sometimes designers rely too much on their opinions, forgetting that they are not the target audience of the product. Of course, I paint with rather large strokes, obviously, this does not apply to all designers. But the fact is that it is often difficult to isolate short-term quantitative indicators that change after the design. Things like user confidence, understanding and clarity, long-term sentiment and delight can be the result of what the designer is promoting, but it’s not easy to put in numbers.

The direct path to the designer's heart is to take care of the details.

Seriously, do you want to make the hearts of designers tremble with joy and delight? Create a layout where each pixel is in its place. Set the quality bar higher, and do not let it show off. Try and make all the small details as needed. Or spend an extra evening working out something for the enjoyment of users. Every designer I know loves to work with engineers and project managers who value design, happily give up sleep and weekends, just to get together and embody something they believe in, and everyone in the team just wants to create something really useful, really cool, really outstanding.