Building a Successful Design Practice with Limited Resources
Guest Contribution
I typically write articles that are a direct result of my education, professional experience, lots of studying and also observation. I wrote previously on the theme of building a design practice within a Startup environment, something that has some tangents with this particular article. The content on this article is focused on exposing some of the conclusions I observed after working in a few different companies where the design resources were limited, and how I overcame those limitations in order to provide solutions and achieve quantifiable successes (for the design group in particular and the company in general). I summarize below the items that I think are crucial in order to achieve success within a project with constraints of different natures.
- Assess and Diagnose the Team Structure?—?One of the key factors when tackling a project, either as a part of a full time assignment or as a contractor, is understanding the team you’ll be integrated in. This becomes really crucial during the interview process when the designer really needs to understand the dimension of the team, but also of the projects that he’ll be tackling. By understanding the scale of a team, and the perspective a company has in regards to the design practice, the professional can understand the evolution of the domain, but also how different tools will become crucial in order to be responsive and effective in the deliverables that are expected. It’s important in this phase to ask questions, understand limitations, ambitions about product, teams and culture.
- Understand the needs of a Team and Project?—?When you join a project and a team that has constraints in terms of resources, it’s imperative that all team members function in unison, or at least, are very aware of what different members are working on. A designer is only as successful as the team he’s integrated in, and that means for all intended purposes, effectively communicating, collaborating and exposing research, ideation sessions, reviewing progress and testing sessions, scheduling releases, all in a democratic and clear way. Something that I observed, working in teams both bigger and smaller, is the fact that at times, one can easily fall under the trap of assuming that different team members know what you’re focusing on. It’s important to engage with teams in general, and far more so, when the resources are limited, and the designer has to tackle different projects for different teams and at different time frames. Having finite resources makes time all the more valuable, and collaboration all the more useful.
- Be Strategic, Choose Effective Tools, Define a Process?—?Much like solving a mathematical equation, where you tackle different components to reach a correct result, when dealing with limited resources to address design needs, the design professional has to contemplate different resources that empower his path in order to achieve a successful solution. In my experience, a UX/UI/Interaction/Creative Designer, will have to tackle a multitude of aspects in the design process, something that is dramatically more evident when you have a finite amount of resources (both in terms of human resources, and sometimes also in terms of software and tools made available). In order to overcome these limitations, Designers need to be strategic. Strategy is a term that is commonly mentioned, but in this particular case really means: map out how you are going to focus on different tasks in order to subsequently enable other teams to be successful. Establish a design process that gives you validity (based on research, best practices, user testing, ideation and iteration, prototypes, everything that composes an effective process), but simultaneously be flexible, and establish resources that you can use that speed up your process. Speeding up, isn’t a synonym with neglect?—?speed up more in the sense of being limber, and therefore, use software tools, that enable you as a professional to deliver solutions in a more timely manner. The design process can be as detailed as the designer sees fit, but having the right tools (for instance, Invision, Sketch or the Adobe Creative Cloud, Marvel, among many others), certainly makes all the difference. If limitations are more severe in terms of software that can be used, go the extra mile, and be ready to have the skills to sketch and produce artifacts manually, that can effectively communicate what you’re trying to advocate for. Run workshops with different team members, and advocate for validation?—?being creative and limber will definitely go a long way when working with finite resources. And to finalize this point: be sure to be organized and thorough. Being able to think of the multiple variables that come into play when designing a product (multiple platforms, localization, ADA compliance, among others), will be crucial for how you build assets and structure the elements that will be part of the artifacts that you create and work on.
- Measuring Outcomes?—?Every process is only as successful as it can be quantifiable (and that can be in terms of sales, conversions, subscriptions, among many others). Analytics will always provide further substantiation to any design process that is set in motion, but on par with these, success can be measured by how effective your communication with different teams has become, and how smoothly the rhythm becomes as the development process continues. Always be sure to have enough time to better understand the outcome of whatever process has been put in place.
I’ll finalize this article by stating that constraints are always part of any project that any designer tackles. The scale of those constraints varies of course, but ultimately is the designer’s responsibility to understand the challenge, and use their resources and capabilities to provide the best solutions within that context. And always remember to have the foresight to advocate for solutions, scenarios and possible outcomes.
Building a Successful Design Practice with Limited Resources was originally published in Muzli -Design Inspiration on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
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