tag:howtomakelightning.com,2014:/feedD. Keith Robinson2013-04-03T10:23:37-07:00D. Keith Robinsonhttp://howtomakelightning.comkeith@dkeithrobinson.comSvbtle.comtag:howtomakelightning.com,2014:Post/being-introverted2013-04-03T10:23:37-07:002013-04-03T10:23:37-07:00Being Introverted<p>Introversion is something I’ve wanted to write about publicly for a few years now. Essentially ever since I began to understand it a bit–and understand that I’m pretty damn introverted. It’s a complex subject, something hard to understand, even for those people who consider themselves introverts. It’s also hard to explain. It’s also not a black and white thing. Some people are more introverted than others, some times interactions with others come easy, etc.</p>
<p>Every time I’ve sat down to write something, I can’t seem to find the words to describe what I want to say about it. That’s why I was so excited when I saw <a href="http://the-pastry-box-project.net/chris-coyier/2013-april-3/">this piece from Chris Coyier today</a>. He’s put to words something I’ve not been able to.</p>
<p><a href="http://the-pastry-box-project.net/chris-coyier/2013-april-3/">Give it a read.</a> Then, if you want, come back for my story, culled from a draft post that’s been sitting here for well over a year.</p>
<h2 id="introversion-my-story_2">Introversion: My Story <a class="head_anchor" href="#introversion-my-story_2">#</a>
</h2>
<p>For years I would have considered myself sort of shy, but never introverted. I mean, I like people. I like being around people. If you were to meet me with my batteries all charged up, you’d probably never consider me to be introverted. But I am. I really enjoy, and require, alone time. I’m classically introverted: interaction with people drains me. Even talking intently to one person drains me. I need to prepare for being social; even the comfortable social time I enjoy with good friends and co-workers. I actually enjoy big parties with lots of people, because it’s easier to limit my social interactions. I can kind of blend in and it’s easier to duck out. Irish goodbye FTW!</p>
<p>Introversion is very often associated with laziness. Which just goes to show how little people understand about it.</p>
<p>When I was in high school, I had a friend of mine call me lazy quite often, referring to my desire to stay home, in my room and hang out with myself. In his mind I was probably sleeping. Far, far from the truth. I was reading, drawing, learning to DJ, playing with computers, writing, etc. I just preferred to do this on my own, and I still do. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy collaboration or social time, I just get recharged and powered up for that by my time to myself. It is true, when I was younger I preferred to be truly alone.</p>
<p>As I get older I find that I’m much more comfortable being alone with others. I can co-work to great productivity and enjoy the presence of others (as long as there’s no talking.) I really enjoy going to shows, having a drink and a good read in a bar, or walking around town taking photos by myself. It’s really the <em>interaction</em> that drains me, not the presence of others.</p>
<p>Alone time means a lot to me, and when I look back at it, it’s been instrumental in shaping me as an adult, both in my personal and professional lives. I’ve always thought it was kind of strange, my desire to be alone, but as the years went by as I learned more and encountered people even more introverted than I am, I began to realize that it’s not all that strange, and that there is great benefit in this time. I’m sure it’s hard for socially driven folks to understand, and it seems like our society is geared towards an extroverted life style, but that’s ok. I’ve found it’s not all that difficult to surround myself with people who understand and accept that I need time to myself.</p>
<p>More importantly, I think, I’ve come to realize that it’s this desire to be alone, to get to know myself and to have time to tinker, read, learn, write and explore all on my own has been a big part of what makes me who I am.</p>
<p>Good thing I like myself. Haha. :)</p>
tag:howtomakelightning.com,2014:Post/maker-culture2013-03-10T17:14:32-07:002013-03-10T17:14:32-07:00Maker Culture<p>I’ve recently been working on a small side project at Heroku to gather up and post my favorite design-related texts, videos, etc. I was calling it, for lack of a better title, “The Design Culture List”. Essentially take the design-centered works from my <a href="http://bobulate.com/post/595878510/text-playlist">text playlist</a> and share them. My intended audience is primarily other designers, but I think it might be fun and interesting for everyone. </p>
<p>In doing an audit of the content I wanted to share, I realized that while it was all of interest to designers, it wasn’t really all that design-focused. Of course, design is a passion of mine, but it’s the act of <strong>making things</strong> that I really enjoy. This is a passion that extends well beyond design, and that was showing up in the stuff I wanted to share.</p>
<p>The best designers are multi-disicplined problem solvers who take craft seriously. I’ve always called myself a designer, but where the real passion in my work lies is in my ability to pull things together to make something new. </p>
<p>This same way of being applies to great engineers, and make no mistake, engineers are designers. Coding, for example, is a skill that requires a decent amount of craft, or art. Systems are designed. But it goes even further than that. Engineers and developers are UX people. In fact, I’d assert that engineers have as much (or in many cases more) impact on the user’s experience of digital products as anyone. </p>
<p>What do all of these people have in common? They are makers. They share a creative spark to bring something new into the world. Instead of division, I say we embrace it and figure out ways we can better mix people together.</p>
<p>I’ve seen a few rumblings out there that seem to underscore this point. Heroku, for all that it’s primarily seen as an engineering-focused culture also calls itself a Do-ocracy and if the recent Waza conference was any evidence, craft is clearly seen as something culturally important to engineers. I love that.</p>
<p>Let’s set aside “design culture” and “engineering culture” and maybe try something like craft or maker culture. Why focus on what’s different when the is so much common ground? </p>
<p>One of my goals this year is to connect people. I’m hoping projects like this help me to do more of that.</p>
tag:howtomakelightning.com,2014:Post/collaborative-diversity2013-02-24T16:20:38-08:002013-02-24T16:20:38-08:00Collaborative Diversity<p>Smarties hailing from different backgrounds (and/or with different ways of thinking) working together is much more effective than separated, homogenous groups of smarties in almost every way. After all, there are many different kinds of smart and mixing them up results in amazing things.</p>
<p>You’ve probably read how small, cross-functional teams are much more effective than your typical silo-ed team approach. I believe that to be true. But there is more to it than that. Cross-function is one part, but it’s also important to create diversity within a particular function. Not all designers are alike, not all engineers think the same way, etc. When you find a group of smart people that share a vision, but offer up different ideas on how to get there, that’s when the magic really happens. </p>
<p>I’m calling this “Collaborative Diversity” and I think it’s a great way to work.</p>
<p>Look at a company like Google. They would not be where they are today without bringing the best minds—from a very wide variety of backgrounds all over the world—together. Their employes have <a href="http://www.google.com/about/company/philosophy/">shared values</a> and a clear mission: to organize and make accessible the worlds information. They also clearly value diversity and collaboration. If you look around at those doing amazing things, you’ll usually see this. I love this bit pulled from their culture page:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It’s really the people that make Google the kind of company it is. We hire people who are smart and determined, and we favor ability over experience. Although Googlers share common goals and visions for the company, we hail from all walks of life and speak dozens of languages, reflecting the global audience that we serve.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>More often you’ll see culture clash producing mediocrity or failure. Especially when there are large groups with little diversity or, just as common, diverse teams not working together with intent, or unifying under shared values. </p>
<p>Or worse, working against each other. Congress might be a good example of that, as <a href="http://www.decodedc.com/home/2013/1/31/episode-7-cerfing-the-net.html">Vint Cerf illustrates in this great episode of DecodeDC</a>. I suppose you could argue that Congress doesn’t have much diversity, but I think what they’re really lacking is collaboration, vision and unified intent. My guess, in general, they do share common values, but who knows? It’s politics and things are a bit murky.</p>
<p>It’s important to note that this kind of collaboration doesn’t come without conflict. It’s ok to clash, as long as your united in vision and purpose and use those differing points of view to move forward towards a goal.</p>
<p>It’s not easy, but it is better. </p>
tag:howtomakelightning.com,2014:Post/becoming-problemcentered2013-02-10T14:50:00-08:002013-02-10T14:50:00-08:00Learning to be Problem-centered<blockquote>
<p>“The problem-centered person sees a problem as a statement about a situation, from which something has been left out. In other words, there is in this situation a relationship or consequence that has not been stated and that must be found.</p>
<p>"But most children in school are answer-centred rather than problem-centered. They see a problem as a kind of announcement that, far off in some mysterious Answerland, there is an answer, which they are supposed to go out and find.”</p>
<p>~ John Holt, from the book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0201484021/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0201484021&linkCode=as2&tag=7nightscom-20">How Children Fail</a> via <a href="http://www.nabeelqu.com/blog/things-i-despised-about-my-education">Things I Dispised about My Education</a> by Nabeel Qureshi</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I can totally relate to this. In fact, I had something like this come up at work this week.</p>
<p>When people ask me questions, often regardless of how it’s phrased, my first instinct is to find the right answer to their question. To me the answer has always been the solution to the problem, and if I can find it, I win. When I can’t, which is very often, I tend to get flustered and, feel, well, inadequate. As you might guess, this isn’t a very good approach. A “right answer” isn’t what people are usually looking for when they ask a question or pose a problem. And that’s just the beginning of the problems with this way of doing this.</p>
<p>Of course, it’s pretty clear when you think about it. </p>
<p><strong>Sometimes the question is just a question and the answer, if there is one, lies somewhere within the problem, waiting to be found.</strong> Not somewhere in the back of my brain.</p>
<p>Problems are meant to be explored. When it comes to work and relationships they’re also meant to be explored together. An answer isn’t always a solution. </p>
<p>This is something I struggle with at times. This is something I really need to remember.</p>
tag:howtomakelightning.com,2014:Post/intuition-data2013-02-06T10:30:00-08:002013-02-06T10:30:00-08:00Intuition & Data<p>Design isn’t only about solving problems, it’s about finding good problems to solve. Research and data are key to finding out where you should be putting your energy, but are they also key in solving problems? Or should that be left to the intuition of your professionals?</p>
<p>I’d assert that you can’t rely upon data or metrics alone to tell you what problems to solve, let alone how to solve them. For that you need human input. Having said that, data is key to making informed decisions, validating them, and getting them pushed forward.</p>
<p>We talk a lot about the balance between intuition and data, and how that plays into making design decisions. I think they’re both needed. You might say there is a balance to be struck here.</p>
<p>But these things go beyond hand-in-hand; they don’t really need “balancing” exactly. Intuition is just another form of data, and it can be learned and made more effective over time (and with more data.) Intuition from experience should very much be weighed as heavily as any other data.</p>
<p>(Related: <a href="http://howtomakelightning.com/blink-then-think">Blink Then Think.</a>)</p>
<p>You need data to help you find problems to solve. And you need intuition, or human reasoning, to decide what to address and how to go about it. Once you’ve got some solutions to experiment with, you need to go back to the data to verify that you’ve in fact solved the problems.</p>
<p>I’d add that relying on metrics alone is probably not a good idea. You should be coupling your numbers with user testing and the like. I’m a big proponent of getting infront of users. Not only do you build up empathy for them, you can gain added insight into your metrics; validating your numbers, etc. and, often lend new perspective to your solutions.</p>
<p>What really matters here is what you do with the data, regardless of the source. The worst thing you can do is let that data stifle you. Get out there and experiment, try things out and learn, gather more data, find more problems. Rinse. Repeat. Just don’t be afraid to go for the long ball or try a big, wacky, hard-to-measure idea. Being able to quickly verify your assumptions will sometimes put you off on trying big things, be sure to keep that in mind and ignore the move quickly/break things/fail fast mantra. It doesn’t always make sense and intuition and inspiration can lead you amazing places.</p>
<p>You certainly can use data to help bake inspiration and intuition into a product. You can take that crazy idea you had, try it out and if it succeeds get it past any sort of committee roadblocking that might be holding you back, thus getting more buy-in on risk taking.</p>
<p>Data is not meant to replace intuition or good product design sense. It’s there to give you the ability to experiment, validate and bring your ideas to consensus. Consensus with out data is probably bad, but being proved by solid data? Totally awesome! :)</p>
<p>Want to talk more? I’ve <a href="http://branch.com/b/data-intuition">started a Branch</a> for this topic.</p>
tag:howtomakelightning.com,2014:Post/3652013-02-01T12:51:00-08:002013-02-01T12:51:00-08:00365<p>I’m a big fan of New Years… stuff. In years past I’ve come up with many goals, plans and resolutions, which I’ve also kept (!!!) to varying degrees.</p>
<p>This year I wanted to do something a bit different. I wanted to come up with something I could do on an ongoing basis that kept me engaged, learning and thinking about ways to be better. I started making a list of some “guiding principles” I wanted to keep in mind, not only for 2013, but daily. I looked at this and thought about it for a long time, trying to figure out something actionable I could do with it.</p>
<p>I came up with a project that, as of right now, doesn’t really have a name. (Maybe I’ll call it “365”.) I’ve been hosting it over at dangerismyfirstname.com (that domain is to awesome to waste) and been working on it pretty much daily for the last month.</p>
<p>The idea is to share one interesting thing every day. Of course, that alone would be pretty boring, so I wanted to add a bit of a twist. So I turned it into a daily design exercise where I’d design a new, fun and unique way to present these interesting things every day. This gives me the variety to do lots of different things, but also a narrow enough scope to keep manageable. Simple, yet infinitely complex.</p>
<p>In a way I’m making slides and publishing to the web every day. For 365 days. </p>
<p>For example, <a href="http://dangerismyfirstname.com/#/2013/510c0b35037c0d04df0002d2">today I posed those principles as one of my entries.</a></p>
<p>I decided to use a service, <a href="http://www.nubook.com">Nubook</a>, that provides hundreds of simple yet customizable templates. I’m hoping this saves me some time in production, but it also presents some interesting problems. It’s working with templates, after all. Then again, these limitations and constraints are part of the challenge, I have to think around them, and that gets my mind working.</p>
<p>But the real trick is simply coming up with something to publish every day and keep it fun and interesting all year long. Especially on those days when my energy is low or time is tight. I really want to try and do this every single day, but I’m not holding myself to that. I’m more worried about keeping the streak alive than I am about the daily exercise.</p>
<p>It’s been harder than I’d thought, but so far, so good. I’ve been trying to do this daily, and every once in awhile do an extra or two to fill in for days I’m just not feeling it.</p>
<p>It takes a bit of discipline, but my hope is that it’ll turn into a habit. You know that one good habit will turn into more, right? Regardless, it’s been a great way to get me in a mindset for work, creating and learning. And a bit of fun as well. </p>
<p><a href="http://dangerismyfirstname.com/">Give it a look.</a> I hope you find something interesting there, and by all means, let me know what you think. :)</p>
tag:howtomakelightning.com,2014:Post/complaining-a-short-manual2013-01-26T10:29:00-08:002013-01-26T10:29:00-08:00Complaining: A Short Manual.<p>Complaining is lame. I do it much more than I’m comfortable with, you do it, people you want to like do it. We can be better. Here’s how:</p>
<p><strong>One.</strong> Ask, “would my dad complain about this?” (Feel free to replace “dad” with anyone else you look up to. I use my dad because <a href="http://www.independent.com/news/2011/feb/14/john-robinson-passes-away/">my dad was awesome.</a>)</p>
<p><strong>Two.</strong> Ask yourself, “will my complaining do anyone (including myself) any good?” Most likely the answer is no. Zip it. Go meditate, exercise, eat a Twinkie, move on to question three, etc.</p>
<p><strong>Three.</strong> Sometimes you’ll leave the realm of complaint and you probably need an honest conversation with someone. That requires a whole other post but quickly:</p>
<ul>
<li>Be honest.</li>
<li>People skills.</li>
<li>Listen.</li>
<li>Think.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Four.</strong> Do you have a journal? Or a <em>private</em> Twitter account with a sympathetic and patient audience who doesn’t mind your whining? If yes, complain your face off there. Really. Go nuts.</p>
<p><strong>Four part two.</strong> Start a private journal if you don’t have one. I don’t think I need to explain this. If you are confused, feel free to go ahead and complain about it on Twitter.</p>
<p><strong>Five.</strong> Still not satisfied? Tell someone close, or a therapist or something, but be sure to get honest feedback.</p>
tag:howtomakelightning.com,2014:Post/hello-heroku2013-01-19T16:29:00-08:002013-01-19T16:29:00-08:00Hello, Heroku.<p>It’s been a bit of a crazy last few months. Thus the lack of frequent writing here. Hopefully I’ll be able to change that soon, as I’ve got a lot of good things to talk to y'all about. :)</p>
<p>About a month ago I left my position at <a href="http://www.desk.com">Desk.com</a>. It was a great gig and I’ll miss ‘em. But I’ve moved on and I’ve just finished up my first week at a new job. </p>
<p>I’m now a product designer on the web applications team at <a href="http://www.heroku.com">Heroku</a>. If you’re not familiar, here’s a little blurb about what we do:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Heroku (pronounced her-OH-koo) is a cloud application platform – a new way of building and deploying web apps. Our service lets app developers spend 100% of their time on their application code, not managing servers, deployment, ongoing operations, or scaling. </p>
<p>Developer productivity is our battle cry, at the core of everything we do. <br>
Why require 3 steps when 1 will do? Why require any action at all when zero steps will do?</p>
<p>A deployment platform’s workflow and experience should be designed. Every decision – from what HTTP cache to use, to the order of command-line flags, to the color of the buttons – has been made with a maniacal focus on developer productivity.</p>
</blockquote><h2 id="why-heroku_2">Why Heroku? <a class="head_anchor" href="#why-heroku_2">#</a>
</h2>
<p>Aside from the news itself, I wanted to talk a bit about why I made the decision to go work for Heroku and why I’m so excited to be doing so. Don’t worry, I’ll keep it short and sweet.</p>
<p>Essentially it boils down to two things:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<em>Heroku’s culture and values align very well with my own.</em> They’re makers and do-er’s. They value getting things done over process. They work hard, but realize working <em>too</em> hard can be a problem. They want to change the world for the better and they’re looking for people to help them do it.</li>
<li>The position itself is a very good fit. They can benefit from the skills I bring to the table and <em>they have a whole lot they can teach me.</em> Adding real value and leveling up is pretty much the sweet-spot as far as I’m concerned.</li>
</ul>
<p>In my initial talks with them I was impressed by the vision and mission of the company and even more impressed with how they’ve interwoven that vision into the culture of the company. Here is a company that walks the walk! </p>
<p>To give you an idea of their values, here are a few tidbits from the culture-related docs I read this week. The on-boarding, something usually tedious, was inspiring and I can’t expressed how impressed I’ve been with their commitment to this stuff:</p>
<ul>
<li>Balance intuition-driven with data-driven. Yes! Something I believe firmly and talk about quite often.
<ul>
<li>Divide and conquer. Big, hard problems become easy if you cut them into small pieces.</li>
<li>Throw things away. Don’t be afraid to start over if that’s the right thing to do.</li>
<li>Results, not politics.</li>
<li>Decision-making via ownership.</li>
<li>Running applications should be easy; making coffee should be hard.</li>
<li>Heroku is all about enabling people to ship awesome software.</li>
<li>Attention to detail.</li>
<li>Respect for users.</li>
<li>Do fewer things, but do them as well as possible.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<p>They also actively embrace things like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_Whys">The 5 Whys</a> and <a href="http://www.12factor.net/">12 Factor App</a>, if that give you an idea. To sum it up, they’re very opinionated, very smart and their values are more than just pithy statements.</p>
<p>While I’m used to working in more engineering-diven cultures, I truly believe Heroku values design and recognize that the diverse ideas someone like me can bring can make them better. In a sense, Heroku is really poised to undertake a true melding of design and engineering and I hope to be right in the center of it. It’s about making and doing more than it is <em>how</em> you make and do. I’m a maker after all, though my tools and techniques might be different, we’ve got a lot of common ground as far as attitude goes.</p>
<p>I’ve already learned a ton, had a bunch of fun and I can’t really express how excited I am to be a newly minted Herokai. </p>
<p>Expect exciting things! And if you’re interested in talking about Heroku–product, design, or whatever–track me down (if you add my user name to my employers domain, you’ll probably be able to get me) and let’s do that. I’d really love to talk to people who use Heroku. :)</p>
tag:howtomakelightning.com,2014:Post/reducing-waste-for-designers2013-01-02T12:09:59-08:002013-01-02T12:09:59-08:00Reducing Waste<p>A big part of Lean methodologies, taken, I think, directly from The Toyota Way, is the idea that you should gear your processes to eliminate waste whenever possible. In principle, this is a good idea, in practice? Well, I have to admit, it does fall apart a bit. Any solid process is going to produce a certain amount of unused work, or waste. And I think that’s ok. But let’s not focus on that, I don’t think Lean shouldn’t be about <em>process</em> at all. The gist of Lean, in my opinion, is that you should focus on <em>working</em> on what matters.</p>
<h2 id="for-projects-and-products_2">For projects and products. <a class="head_anchor" href="#for-projects-and-products_2">#</a>
</h2>
<p>I’ve harped on this before but it bears repeating; it’s hard to do great work when you’re not focused. When I think of of Lean principles and reducing waste, I look at it like this: anything that keeps you from being focused on doing good, valuable work can be considered “waste”. In most cases this boils down to things like excessive meetings, constant task/context switching, large course adjustments, lack of direction, zombie projects, working on the wrong things, poor process, etc. This is why research, learning, measuring and validation are so valuable. You spend a little time making sure you’re not wasting a lot of time working on the wrong things.</p>
<p>Having said that, there is more to it than just figuring out what to work on. People need time to focus, to think and to get knee deep into their work.</p>
<h2 id="for-people_2">For people. <a class="head_anchor" href="#for-people_2">#</a>
</h2>
<p>For me, personally, this means setting boundaries, saying “no” and setting aside solid time blocks for work. It means adding things to my don’t list and, sometimes regrettably, killing off projects. I can handle working on a few projects at one time, with the right setup, but I’ve tested and proven to myself many times that I can’t multitask or context switch well. I think this holds true for most people, whether they want to admit it or not. </p>
<p>Context switching and distraction, unfortunately, are part and parcel of modern working. Multitasking, however, is something I think many of us can do much better with. The idea that you can do several things at once and be more productive is, in a nutshell, ridiculous. I’d much rather spend a good solid week, four hours a day, heads down working on <em>one</em> project then try to tackle a few different things each day. I’m happier, I get more done and my work is of a higher quality.</p>
<h2 id="bottomline_2">Bottomline <a class="head_anchor" href="#bottomline_2">#</a>
</h2>
<p>Lean should be all about nailing down your focus so you can get to work on something meaningful. Part of that is figuring out what to work on but the meat is all about creating a work style and environment that allows for focused work.</p>
tag:howtomakelightning.com,2014:Post/communicating-design2012-11-01T10:47:00-07:002012-11-01T10:47:00-07:00Communicating Design (Revised)<p>Design process and how designers communicate their design decisions to others is kind of a obsession of mine. I’ve been lucky enough to have been involved in just about every aspect of digital product design and I’ve seen the process from the eyes of a product manager, a designer, a coder, a creative director, etc.</p>
<p>All of this thinking has led me to the following conclusion, which I think still holds true:</p>
<blockquote class="short">
<p>Communicating design, in general, needs to be less about documentation and more about clear, concise and ongoing two-way communication.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In other words: spend your time designing, not documenting. I don’t know about you, but contrary to what I sometimes hear from designers, I’m not in the business of making flow charts, personas and wireframes. In the end, these things <strong>literally do not matter</strong>. Even in the best cases they usually cost valuable time and energy. Worse, can be a source of miscommunication or used as an excuse for when a product’s experience fails. I’ve seen a few great ideas die a premature death due to an inability to gain consensus on documentation. It’s ridiculous.</p>
<p>Very often designers spend way to much time producing ineffective—yet often impressive—deliverables and not enough making sure the decisions within those deliverables are handled appropriately throughout the process.</p>
<p>There is no doubt that an essential part of the design process is communicating (not necessarily documenting) design decisions. But it’s those ideas and decisions—and their impact on the end product—that matter, not the documents themselves.</p>
<p>In most cases:</p>
<ul>
<li>if you’re doing high-level design (goals definition, roadmaps, feature definition, content planning, flows, etc.) you should be spending your time doing research, thinking/problem-solving and then, as briefly and clearly as possible, communicating the outcome of that thinking.</li>
<li>if you’re doing detail-level design (visual design, UI, interaction) you should be working on the details and assets that go into the final product. If you have the ability, you should be producing (or working with an engineer directly to produce) fully functional prototypes or, often better, working on the final product itself. I’m a big fan of the “design in your medium” method.</li>
<li>if you’re producing mid-level design documents—like wireframes and personas—do them with extreme care. Remember, these are means to an end, treat them as such and you’ll have fewer problems. There are a few cases where they work, for example, coming up with the tone (for copy and visuals) of an app or site.</li>
</ul>
<p>I realize (trust me) that the above isn’t always doable. Usually it comes down to the makeup of your team. You might have UX folks who aren’t strong with look and feel, or a designer who doesn’t code much. And that can work out just fine, again, if they’re good communicators. I’m not going to touch the specialist vs. generalist argument, except to say that everyone on a product team should strive to have a solid understanding of what their teammates do.</p>
<p>Designers should, at the very least, be able to communicate effectively with engineers and vice versa. And if you’ve got people who’s skills span many parts of the stack, that’s awesome. Even if they don’t actually do all that work. For example I can code, but usually there is someone around who’s better at it than I am. It’s good for me have that ability, and to be able to speak to it, while at the same time letting my co-workers do what they do best.</p>
<p>(A quick side note: I’ve noticed that large teams are very often slower. More resources doesn’t usually equal speedier, or even better, product development. The issue this post is trying to tackle is more process related, but I think many of these issues could be solved by simply making teams smaller and more focused.)</p>
<h2 id="communication_2">Communication <a class="head_anchor" href="#communication_2">#</a>
</h2>
<p>A designer’s ability to communicate: listen, answer questions, etc. is probably their number one asset. Keeping a clear and open line of communication between you, your teammates and your stakeholders can make all the difference.</p>
<p>All of this takes trust in those you work with as well as a willingness to let others in. You may feel like you’re giving up control, and it some ways you are, but through that sharing you will often actually have more control over the final outcome. You know, the thing that’s important.</p>
<p>I feel pretty strongly that designers should be willing to share and accept feedback throughout the process. I believe that great design requires a solid, singular vision but acknowledge that allowing more people into the process can be a good thing if it’s done right. It’s not about building consensus, it’s more about sharing and taking advantage of the full talents of your team. You can have a strong vision and still be open to new ideas and feedback. In fact, this is a big part of what makes a good designer great.</p>
<p>I love the idea of boiling the design process down to really quick rounds of design/build where designers and engineers work closely together and iterate often. Make no mistake, this is difficult and requires understanding on all sides as well as a remarkable ability to communicate.</p>
<p>Having said all of this, I think that at the end of the day, a designer should be flexible and able to adjust to whatever process works for the rest of his/her team. Ideally though, I’d prefer to spend most of my time working on my final product and less on the details of my design deliverables. These things can be useful and sometimes necessary, but, in my opinion, the focus should always be on that final product.</p>
<p>And, trust me, while you’re busy documenting your ideas, your competition is out there iterating on a product with real data. The quicker you can get a product out the door, even an imperfect one, the better. I think most would agree on that, so why do designers still waste time with this stuff?</p>
<p>*Note: This is a revision of a post I wrote a couple years back, I’d started writing something new and realized that I was echoing some thoughts I’d previously jotted down</p>