Articulating Design Decisions

Product Information

Just as often, we try to optimize the primary use case by minimizing and limiting secondary or edge cases. For example, although any user is encouraged to maintain his account profile information, it is not the main purpose of the application. This informs our decision to put account management functions in a drop-down menu rather than a large call to action. Noting these justifications can help you keep people focused on ensuring that the primary use case is always optimized even in the face of other needs and features.

One thing that helped me a lot to do this was to bring the project as closely as possible with all partner areas: design system, content design, business and technology. So when my project was presented in the discussions, we could talk about what we could evolve from what we have today. The customer journey flow had some experience improvement needs and one of the requirements was that we simplify. Instead of fighting a bad idea or one that is difficult to improve, we usually give up. We usually shrug our shoulders and add what the person wants, exactly as proposed."I was stumped. Silent. Not only did I know that she was right, but she had exposed my superficial design ego in a way that made me feel small and completely clueless about the thing that I was most confident in—my ability to talk about design.

For example, you might create two prototypes. One using their proposal and a second based on user insights and data. They’ll understand why your design works better when they experience the prototypes from a user’s perspective. Making Better Design Decisions With UXPin Merge Clear and effective communication of design decisions conveys how well the designers have understood the business requirements and the effort and thought process they used to arrive at the solution. This instills a sense of confidence in clients about the designers’ capabilities and expertise, building trust and credibility. Moreover, it gives reassurance to clients that their product is in good hands and they will get the best results for their investment. 3. Steers the design team We need to confess the mistake with the humility we have and speak openly about it, letting people know that when you have a problem in the project, you will say it as soon as possible so that the improvement is made as soon as possible. Articulating Design Decisions is a thorough, articulate and fun read about the subject of design meetings. The thoughtful way that Tom has approached this topic proves that he's an expert at communicating ideas in a way that others can understand! He's an obvious choice for writing an O'Reilly standard on this topic and theWe want to make changes to evolve our design, but being asked to make changes we disagree with is exactly what we’re trying to avoid." Part of anticipating how people will react is preparing in advance the alternatives that you considered or that you think will be suggested. You’ll remember from Chapter 2 that one of the questions we’re trying to answer for our stakeholders is: Why is this better than the alternative? Schools are responding to the changing demand for designers by offering courses in information architecture, interface design, and usability testing techniques, and rightly so. But, the majority of people working in UX today didn’t come from a school that specialized in the field nor did we take a class to teach us a user-centered approach. We migrated into UX from other areas within the company: marketing, IT, design, research. Even human behaviorists and psychologists are finding their relevance in the explosive field called UX. IT’S A NEW ROLE Using data is really compelling to stakeholders. For that reason, it’s also important to recognize that looking at bad data will still yield the wrong choice, so we need to be really careful with this approach. What I mean is that data often tells us what the user did, but not why. We try to infer the why by looking at the what, and this naturally involves making assumptions. If we make changes based on a wrong assumption, we end up with a design that is likely to cause more problems than it solves. So, keep in mind that making decisions based on data can only be truly effective when taken as a measure of the project on the whole, in context, and without too many assumptions.