10 quotes of bad designers

There are many materials on the Internet on how to identify a good designer. This article approaches the issue on the other hand - in it I would like to talk about what signs indicate a bad designer. Below are ten quotes to help you identify difficult cases.

No. 1 “I am a designer, I know what the user needs”

Often come across designers who believe that they understand the problem field better than everyone else - investors, other team members, in especially advanced cases, even the users themselves. As a result, they cling to the decision they have outlined and dodge any criticism.

You must understand: no matter how many years you have worked in this area, all your ideas are just hypotheses. And hypotheses need to be checked. By skipping the verification phase, you base the entire workflow on unsupported assumptions. That is why experienced professionals say: a good designer comes from custom problems, a bad designer comes from their own solutions.

No. 2 “It worked that time, it will work now”

Here you can cite the famous statement of Heraclitus, the Greek philosopher: "You can not enter the same river twice." For UX design, this means that what worked in one context may not work in another. For each new product that you take to work, you should select the tools and techniques that are most suitable for the project.

No. 3 “It seems that users are experiencing significant cognitive load. We need to carry out heuristic verification to make sure that the original hypothesis is valid. ”

This is just one example of how designers use professional jargon in everyday discussions. Inside the UX team, such phrases are quite appropriate, but outside it, when a designer tries to share an idea or ideas with a company, they confuse people. Such expressions do not say anything to people who have little idea of ​​the techniques that are used in UX design. As a result, for unfamiliar words, they lose the thread.

Remember: sprinkling speech with jargon, you do not look cool. In addition, you invite other people to meetings and presentations not to show how cool you are, but to get a valuable response from them. One of the basic skills of a UX designer is the ability to express complex concepts in a simple language. By describing UX practices simply, you will get everyone to be on the same wavelength as you.

No. 4 “There is no need to make a prototype. Launch the product and everything will become clear. ”

Another common mistake that teams make is that they skip the prototyping phase and immediately spend a ton of resources on development. When they invest a lot in a product, and after launch it turns out that in a natural environment the solution does not work as intended - this is a very stressful situation.

Prototyping allows you to test a hypothesis before spending your time and time on developers to create a complete product. It will be better if the problem pops up at the prototype stage - the cost of fixing it will then be much less than if the product is already publicly available. As David Kelly, founder of IDEO, said: “The sooner you go through failure, the sooner you will succeed.”

Prototyping is far from always time consuming. Designers can use various tools for this purpose. One useful technique is called rapid prototyping; this is a common way in a short time to make layouts of different states of the application or site and test them on users.

No. 5 “The product is launched, I have nothing more to do here”

Some designers believe that after the product has entered the market, nothing more is required of them. In fact, the product design process does not end with the release. In many cases, the amount of work after the project is launched may even exceed what has been done before. The designer will need to revise the interface based on user behavior data - he should focus on how users interact with the product, extract relevant information from this, and make adjustments to the design to improve the experience.

This quote reveals another serious problem - the lack of a sense of ownership. A designer who says so does not feel adequately responsible for his decisions.

No. 6 "I am a creative person, not a techie"

Designers often perceive development and marketing as necessary components of work on a product, but at the same time take the time to get to know these areas better. In other words, they prefer to lock themselves in within their industry.

In fact, overcoming these barriers is a great way to get your hands on UX design. Talk with developers, establish contacts with marketers, try to look at the project from their point of view. This will allow you to appreciate the contribution of many people with whom you work on projects. Both a deeper understanding of the processes and empathy towards other team members will contribute to the creation of better products.

No. 7 “We need to do as investors want, and nothing else”

The position of “who pays, and orders music” is a common problem in the field of design. Of course, if you design a product exactly the way investors want to see it, it becomes much easier to advance. But there is a serious danger in this approach. The fact that a person occupies a high position in the corporate hierarchy does not mean that he is always right. A UX designer is a person who takes responsibility, and it will be he who will be to blame if the design does not work. That is why the designer must masterfully be able to negotiate. He must make sure that during the work everyone gets the right to vote, and not just those who have the money.

No. 8 “Either do it, in my opinion, or I'm leaving the project”

Imagine this situation: you conducted a study of user behavior and found a lot of problems with usability. You require the team to work them all out. You are sure that you are right and refuse to compromise. You say that if all errors are not corrected, the UX will be worthless.

Undoubtedly, the willingness to uphold the right UX solutions is a valuable skill for the designer. But he must also be able to analyze the current context and adapt to it. There are no teams with an unlimited amount of resources and therefore it is almost impossible to satisfy your requirement and eliminate all shortcomings in UX. For this reason, teamwork requires compromises. In order for the project not to get stuck, it is necessary to prioritize your recommendations and make sure that the team takes the most critical of them (that is, those that strongly affect UX), while less important ones can be postponed ( in the backlog of the project).

No. 9 “Since Google and Amazon do this, then we need to”

When big names begin to sound when discussing design decisions, this gives the arguments more credibility. But not the fact that the practices of other companies or projects will be suitable for your case. There is nothing wrong with borrowing patterns from major players when creating a design - but only if they form a more positive experience for your product. And you can verify this, again, by conducting tests with real users.

No. 10 “We carry out the design process strictly according to plan, without deviations”

The way the design process unfolds is a critical aspect. Without a clearly defined action plan, the designer will have to move almost gropingly. On the other hand, when the whole process is clearly outlined, it becomes possible to provide users with a wonderful experience.

Many people think that there is one single universal list of steps for the design process, which guarantees excellent results and can be applied to any process. Unfortunately, such a solution for all occasions does not exist. You can prescribe the steps for each project individually, but in general, the course of work will always be determined by specific requirements - because each project is unique and has its own needs.

In addition, the plan is not closed to changes: designers should be prepared to adjust it based on incoming information. For example, if you conducted a usability test or A / B testing and found out that some element of the product design needs to be changed, be prepared to return to the prototyping stage and consider another solution.