Communicating Design

COMMUNICATING DESIGN

Farah Nuraini Februari 2016Adopted from Matthew Green and Mike Montierro’s works

Being awesome at design is not enough.

Communication is a core skill for designers

If you cannot justify your decision and communicate

that to the people who will approve your work,

you might as well have not done your work

Communication is a skill we can all improve

7 THINGS IN COMMUNICATING DESIGN

1. UNDERSTAND THE BUSINESS


• You are not there to make stakeholder

happy

• Your job is to solve a business problem

• Happiness is a side effect of meeting those

goals


• Understand the business goals (interview)

• Understand how the thing you’re building

support those goals

• Define the metrics for success

2. SET THE STAGE PROPERLY


Prepare:

• Why are we here?

• Where are we in the process?

• What are the goals for the meeting today?

• Restate the approved: brief, problem, and

goals


• Make sure you’re ready (better to cancel

a meeting than waste people’s time)

• Prepare all the materials you need in

case there is no internet

3. BE CONFIDENT

You’re the expert. Make them trust you. Don’t apologize.

4. BE ENGAGING

• What is the interesting angle?

• Watch for sign of engagement vs boredom

• Ask questions to make sure they are

following

4. BE ENGAGING

5. DON’T CONSIDER QUESTIONS

AS CHANGE REQUEST

“Why is this green?”“I can change it?”


AS CHANGE REQUEST


AS CHANGE REQUEST

• Sometimes a question is just a person

trying to understand

• If something is designed for a reason,

respectfully assert why the decision was

made.

6. GUIDE THE FEEDBACK LOOP


• Feedback loop is a term

commonly used in economics to

refer to a situation where part of the

output of a situation is used for

new input


Don’t ask ambiguous questions

e.g “What do you think?”, “Do you like

it?”


• What is the feedback or action you

need in order to do your job?

• Make sure the stakeholders are

clear about what they are seeing

• Know the stakeholder’s pet peeves

and what drives them crazy


Example:

We are showing you a payment flow.

Please ignore errors and typos,

as today our goal is to focus on

flow and to make sure that there is

no missing scenario in the process.

7. DON’T GET DEFENSIVE


• When we get defensive, we make it harder

to really listen to what they have to say.

• We make it that much harder for our

conversational counterparts to listen to what

we’re saying


• Listen to the stakeholder and try to

understand what they mean. Stay quiet!

• Never get mad and yell, but also don’t sit

there and take it. Present your arguments

respectfully.

• Restate and reframe the problem according

to their needs

7 THINGS IN COMMUNICATING DESIGN

1. Understand the business

2. Set the stage properly

3. Be confident

4. Be engaging

5. Don’t consider questions as change requests

6. Guide the feedback loop

7. Don’t get defensive

My work is not me.

Your work exists to

achieve a business goal.

Don’t get butthurt.

Many times you will be wrong.

THANK YOU!