Articulating Design Decisions

Product Information

I usually have the data in a separate file or report that I saw earlier, and I know I can share it with stakeholders when asked. In addition, you can never be fully prepared for these meetings without first rehearsing them, either in your head or out loud. If possible, point out the specific problem areas that you think will be a point of contention and help them understand how to respond.

Greever makes the point that UX designers’ frustration with the perceived dismissiveness of stakeholders may arise from a lack of empathy.The point here is that as you get to know people, you should be able to identify what is distracting to them and remove those things from the conversation. Even just 5 or 10 minutes before the meeting will do, but it will help you and your peers to be prepared to present and respond. Immediately afterward, one of the other executives pulled me aside and said, “Hey, I’m sorry I haven’t made myself available much, but I really want your project to succeed and I’d like to help, if I can. She spent part of the meeting trying to read it aloud, and I had to explain to her why we use ipsum copy in design.

I quickly picked up on this and discovered that every time I gathered data to support my proposal, she would agree. In the middle of the night, you wake up to the realization that there is a very important use case that no one had considered. As often as we’re justifying our decisions based on what we think needs to be done, we are also making a case for times when there are limitations that need to be taken into consideration. The more you practice going through the content, the less your brain will have to think about the agenda and the more mental capacity you’ll have to be focused on being articulate and responding.Although limits in resources are usually just a matter of money and people, there are four main areas that seem to affect web and application design more than others: Support There is a lack of support, infrastructure, or internal processes to handle the added requirements. For some people, you might not know the answer to these questions because their participation is unclear. They’re already on board and they were part of the discussion that led to the decision you’ll present.