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Project Managers: How to Get the Best From Your Designers

Laura Whitehead
By Laura Whitehead on 10th May, 2016 Updated on 22nd April, 2020

You could say I’ve worked the “grand tour” of roles. I’ve had the privilege of being adesigner, a front-end developer, a project manager, and a leader for teams of designers, developers, and UX pros. Now I’ve come full circle back to doing what I love: design.

Taking on these different roles allowed me to learn how each discipline sees the design process and translate that to my team in order for them to communicate their design decisions effectively.

I’ve learned that getting the best from your design team ultimately depends on 4 importantt lessons.

Feature photo credit: Laura Kershaw. Design at Kaplan Test Prep.

1. Demand that designers help gather requirements first-hand

Imagine that you’re given a compass and told you need to walk north. How do you know you’ve reached your destination? Why are you walking there in the first place? What’s waiting for you when you arrive?

Requirements gathering is a vital step toward understanding and framing a design problem.

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Photo credit: Laura Kershaw. Design at Kaplan Test Prep.

It’s the stage where the tough questions get asked, assumptions are outlined, and the what, why, when, and where gets discussed. If designers are left out of this process, they’ll only have a second-hand understanding of those requirements. They shouldn’t be handed a summary and asked to “mock up some screens.”

When design is presented as a prescriptive exercise, it becomes a deliverable—something to cross off a to-do list. To avoid this prescriptive mindset, have them play an active role while gathering requirements. Engage your designers with the problem.

How to involve designers

If they don’t feel comfortable talking directly to users, find other ways for them take part.

Ensure that they can observe interviews or listen to phone calls, then task them with keeping notes, such as general observations or identifying key patterns in feedback. A front-row perspective helps bring a design challenge to life and sparks initial idea generation.

When it comes to business requirements, work with your business analyst to decide when designers should be included in the process. Perhaps that means designers attending a discovery workshop with key business stakeholders, or working shadowing core business teams for a few hours.

Whatever the scenario, designers must be active participants. You want them to leave with a clear understanding of key business needs and a better definition of “Done”.

2. Adapt to the type of designers on your team

When I say “designers,” I’m including several job titles and roles. You’re most likely working with these three types:

  • Interaction Designers – Designers who focus on the user interface (UI)—creating engaging elements, behaviors, and actions between the system and user.
  • Visual Designers – Designers who focus on the look and feel of a product and brand (encompassing the whole product or service).
  • Product/UX Designers – Designers who focus on balancing the needs of the business, the users, and what is technically possible while designing products and services to meet those needs.

Designers with deep expertise in one area and a broad understanding of design best practices across the board may be called “specialized generalists” (If you’re lucky, you’ll have someone with expertise in all of the above.)

Speak to designers in their own “language”

Designers have different ways of tackling problems and getting to the root of a challenge. The only way to really understand those on your product team is learning how they work and how to motivate them.

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Photo credit: Diogenes Brito. Design at Slack.

When working alongside visuals designers, try sketching out issues and challenges. With interaction designers, discuss problems in terms of feedback loops. Ask questions like “How will a user know they can change the content on this page?” or “What is going to make a user engage with this action more than once?”. For product and UX designers, make the user’s experience the heart of every conversation.

Be wary of designers who have a  “leave-me-to-craft-my-art” attitude.

Siloed design will never be as strong as collaborative design. If you work with designers like this, encourage them to meet daily (or as frequently as possible) to present their ideas to the rest of the product team. This will help them rationalize and articulate their decisions, giving you insight into their thought process and feeding discussions among the team.

3. Minimize redundant conversations with a style guide

As designers, we naturally seek to create the perfect experience.

But as a product manager, it isn’t easy to chase perfection when you’re pulled between getting an MVP out the door on time and delivering a great experience. So how do you find that balance between quality and speed?

Enter the style guide.

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Photo credit: Lonely Planet Style Guide

When I refer to a “style guide,” I’m talking about a living document (ideally, a front-end repository) that establishes how UI elements should look and behave. It should include everything the development team needs to know for implementing the design.

A living style guide can include anything—from color palettes, typefaces, and interactions to design patterns like search forms, grids, and navigation. Most importantly, it should describe the context of use for all elements (when, where, and why).

A style guide with modular design patterns helps you minimize redundant conversations about the subtleties of an interface. Developers worry less about inconsistency while they focus on the interface, freeing designers to focus on the core interaction models of your MVP.

Get more style guide best practices in the free e-book The Critical Components of Style Guides.

4. Stop, collaborate, and listen (… then iterate)

Simply put, designers will generate stronger and more feasible ideas when they have more time to gather feedback and collaborate with their other designers, developers, and end users.

Design critiques

Design critiques are a great way to produce valuable and focused feedback. They should be well-structured and kept on track by an appointed facilitator, and should include the wider project team. (Just remember that some designers are concerned about sharing low-fidelity work.)

Establish ground rules ahead of time so that everyone knows the type of feedback you’re looking for and how it should be given. It’s important that design critiques happen in-person or contextually in a collaborative platform never via email, and never, ever on a spreadsheet.

Sharing during a critique

When giving feedback during a critique, people tend to open with subjective comments (“I don’t like that color”) or offer a solution straight away (“We should use blue icons instead”).

Because it’s not linked to project goals, this kind of feedback is essentially unconstructive. To avoid this, write down project goals at the beginning and ask that all feedback relate to those goals, whether it’s positive or “needs improvement.”

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One of UXPin’s recent internal projects. 

It’s important to affirm with your designer that they are the design owner, meaning it is ultimately their decision which feedback to incorporate in the next iteration. Also, If there is only one designer on your product team, encourage them to seek feedback early (and often) from other team members.

A team feedback exercise

Print out your designs/screens and stick them to a wall (leaving space for a few post-it notes in between) rather than present them individually.

Set 10-15 mins on a timer. Have everyone silently review each of the screens and write feedback on post-it notes, then place the relevant notes next to the design print-out.

Once time is up, the facilitator reads each note to the group. (At this point, your designer can explain their rationale behind each design.) As you go through the screens, create a list of points to be investigated and improved.

This task list can inform further design ideas and iterations.

Conclusion

To win over the heart of a designer, you need to care about the value design brings to product development—and learn how to speak the “language.”

You’re more likely to get the best out of them by encouraging collaboration, engaging them early in the process, adapting to their needs, and standardizing details with style guides.

Interested in more UX advice? Get the free e-book UX Design Process Best Practices.

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