Design Viewpoint: Non-designer to the designer's left and right

Non-designers mainly say those who do not directly engaged in the design of the implementation of the people, to small look, in fact, today's chat is mainly to do "visual design implementation" of a friend of a puzzle. If you're a planner, I think it's part of the "design" category, but you don't "do" the final results-make the idea into an interface, a Web page, a plane, or a TV clip.

Of course, there are a lot of small details to be studied in "doing" itself, it is particularly easy to draw our attention to the designers are not about the designer, for example: one of your customers often like to call you past their company, in front of him to do the design, and then he moved a small stool behind the watch. It used to be a regular routine for graphic designers, especially small studios (design companies).

Today is said to be "left and right", that is, a bit of the taste of manipulation, this is not to make the design process enjoyable things, and the real "advice" is different, on how to adopt the design recommendations of the part, I have written before the article does not repeat.

First, why the phenomenon arises

When it comes to people (who often have a certain right to decide, otherwise he will not come to make any comments about the design, most of the cause is due to the designer's uneasy, not to worry about the reasons: worry about the design level of designers, worry about designers spend too much time, worry about designers too strong personal style and so on. In fact, this phenomenon is not only in the design cooperation process, sometimes designers are too sensitive.

It's like you go to a haircut, how many people dare to sleep in the end, so that hair stylist casually cut it? You are not also in the process of pruning, a moment said there are burrs, a moment to say that there seems to be thicker? The general hairdresser will be patient with you, and the Director designer, the chief designer, will ask your thoughts at the outset and slowly lead to more expensive cuts and more costly care packages. And we ourselves in the process of design, but there is no such awareness.

Lack of communication is the core cause of being "layman", lack of communication with the non-designers, no initiative to find the design of the balance point of the ability, of course, you will be treated as a fortune cat, you can only put a hand, customers do not know what you have added value, and finally his mouth, you contribute.

Two, about your goods.

There are so many roles that are generally easy to design and implement, and of course I am based on the internet and mobile device design areas. If you want to not be swayed by them, it is important to know what role these goods play in the design-related process, how they think, what they focus on, and what values they value in order to build bridges of communication.

1. Product Manager

The Product manager and the project manager are a little different, the product manager is more concerned about the quality of the product and the key points in the design process, the project manager determines the exact delivery time and the resource coordination problem in the project. Since a product is made up of a number of different links, this leads to product managers involved in more energy, and each link to deal with the frequency of time is also more, things miscellaneous, heavy task, long-term accumulation of product manager for a designer is a requirement: fast, direct, save time of the output design .

From the point of view of design quality, in addition to some of the professionally qualified product managers, most product managers are almost "pretty blind" because, for product managers, delivery at the exact time and place is far more important than what is delivered, allowing iterations and modifications, but not procrastination or accountability. With this foundation, you can be in the early design of a reasonable design time and staff arrangements, rather than let the product manager to arrange you, so you will be very passive.

In addition, if your design can save more time in the process, that is their most concern, so if there is a problem, you "how to effectively save time cost" way to communicate, far more than "why we are always wasting time" more effective.

2. Programmers

Research and development system, designers and programmers have endless stories, no matter how the two people pinch, finally their work content and results are very strong relevance. So when communicating with programmers, pay attention to the way programmers think: The logic is strong, only do useful things, do not affect stability .

The reason many designers don't communicate is because you always think people want what you want, then slowly to realize that such a wait is useless-a donkey pulled 10 years of grinding is still a donkey, it will not because you give it a lighter wear, and thank you. The only way to organize programmers to negate your design results because of "technical difficulty" or "time pressure" is to understand their thinking logic, not to demonstrate unrealistic design, and not to put forward ideas that don't conform to technical logic.

I certainly don't want you to have the ability to write code, but you have to at least know the efficiency of the development tools they are using, and the pressure of the program department to achieve your design without giving direct credit to the program department, and because your design affects the overall stability of the system, it can affect the programmer's KPIs, That's the point.

3. The Boss

A good boss encourages innovation, but does not supervise the time of implementation, because he feels that the designer should be able to handle it; poor bosses encourage innovation, but they often get the job done, or they don't realize the value of the innovation. So the designer's work is contradictory, catering to the boss in the end only in the visual means to play some clever, and not necessarily the design is how good.

The boss is concerned about the time required for design to produce value, his trust in design is based on the identity of the company's internal cronies, as well as the customer's identity, so you have to struggle to think of some ways to find "design-worthy" evidence in your product area, and make professional results for your boss to see. The boss only looks at the results, he doesn't care about your process, even when you think the process is beautiful, he thinks you spend too much time.

The cost is the boss will often consider the problem, so in each design communication process, first think "The cost of this design how I control", rather than when the boss and you discuss the so-called design, you first said "To do well, I think should do these inputs." Do design before, first do for the sake of the company, for the sake of the boss, he will trust you more.

4. Customer

The customer is about your design, that's the nature. If a product as a child, I ask a nanny to wash her clothes, design hair, makeup photos, I also have to comb her plait, buckle button it? And no matter how bullish a designer you are, you have to believe that the customer must know more about his product than you do.

Therefore, the opinion of the product may he think that there is a better way, in the communication process with the customer, usually in a variety of design and display to convince the customer, in the comparison let the customer get the choice. This approach is similar to an internal proposal, starting from different directions, to find a better way to implement the design, to do the screening problem. Most customers accept the same way, but your ability to lead needs to be tempered.

To let customers not design, generally in two cases: one is admiring, full trust in your design, of course, and reputation, and just your ideas completely and customer's ideas in tune, dry wood encounter fire, everything is very smooth; second, the customer completely do not understand, anyway, as long as you have a line of things on it, the demand is not high, Of course the remuneration is not too high, not he is in a hurry, is you rush task, in short everything is safe.

5. Decision-making impact role

People around these 4 roles are often "shadow killers" that can affect your design process, if your boss is not very comfortable with the design results, and embarrassed to ask at the company meeting, then it is possible that he will show his friends to get their opinions; If your product manager doesn't know if the design results are qualified, He may send to someone he thinks is a professional "industry", even if the guy may be a net friend, he will listen to his "real opinion" .... This is the tragedy of one-way design, when the designer did not take the initiative to establish channels of communication, the value of communication is diluted, these from all directions of opinion, should be you as a tool to shut them up.

So there are too many of these marginal people to deal with? In fact, very simple, they are not really holding a responsible attitude to look at the design, there is no need, there is no labor costs, are generally concentrated in the "fault", if they can not pick, they will say: "OK", "very ordinary", "good". The answer comes from the fact that your design proposals are beautiful, and that if you do a good job at the visual level and are professional enough, their opinions will not be too harsh. After all, they may not understand the intent of the product.

In the end, they are also a lovely group, no one will that begging and you in the design of a life-and-death, just as designers, sometimes we are too monotonous, do not give them enough understanding and attention, I believe that as long as the design of "people", you can also become a design "division"-First open your gas field.