Interface designers — you need to be thinking product
Guest Contribution
You’re doing more than just “design”?—?whether you know it or not
As interface designers, our primary focus is on the look and feel of a product. Clients may not know how to create an interface design from nothing, and so engage us to design something that they, and their users, will find visually pleasing.
However, designing an interface inherently involves way more than just the look and feel.
Designers have to wear many different hats beyond just design.
We need to have a stack of different skills beyond just UI design. More than ever, designers need to be thinking about the holistic product.
We need to be able to go beyond the visuals and into the heart of a product —
We need to understand why it’s being built, how it’s being built and what the product’s objectives are.
Here’s why.
1?—?Designing interfaces = solving problems visually
Sure, clients engage us primarily for “creating the visuals”, but don’t forget?—?designing interfaces plays a key part in solving problems.
When you’re designing an interface, you’re always having to think?—?what makes the most sense to a user?
Your design considerations, whether they’re decisions on how to best represent various datasets or what navigation style suits best, are all examples of you solving problems. These impact the look of the product, but also impact how efficiently users solve their own problems within a product.
You are trying to help a user solve a problem efficiently. Problem-solving skills make you invaluable in helping companies not only craft their design, but also their product.
TL;DR?—?You’re solving more than just visual problems when you design an interface.
2?—?You need to understand how feasible your designs to build
Many designers can create magnificent experiences that make user’s jaws hit the ground. Just take a look at Dribbble?—?ignoring usability concerns for a moment, many designs from top designers there are simply incredible.
And that’s great?—?especially if you’re making your client happy. However, if you’re making developers cry, you may have more of an issue than you realise. Telling the devs to lift their game isn’t always the best approach.
As Designers, we need to work with Developers?—?not against them.
Before you venture into high-fidelity designs, you need to think about the development environment your design is heading into. If your client has limited time and resources, chasing your super-intensive designs down the rabbit hole may not be on the cards.
Keeping your client and their developers happy is the goal.
TL;DR?—?Don’t come dressed in a ball gown if the invite says smart casual.
3?—?Look and feel does not equal usability
Designing an interface often means navigating through a maze of trade-offs between how visually pleasing versus how usable it is.
When clients request lots of fields, buttons, never-ending filters, notifications galore and pop-ups at every step, you’re bound to start thinking —
Woah! How can I make all of this happen yet keep things usable?
All of a sudden, you’re the master of balancing the visuals with the overall experience. You become the product’s user experience guru.
Wait, weren’t you hired just for the visuals?
4?—?Every product is different, so you have to design for the situation
Some products solve complex problems in simple ways, others solve simple problems in complex ways. As designers, we need to align our design strategy with the client’s product strategy.
There is never a one-size-fits-all approach for every client.
Different types of users, target markets and pricing strategies means you need to be contextual. An audience of tech-savvy business users means you need to keep in mind very different objectives to users that just bought their first smartphone.
Your ability to understand a company’s product strategy and design within that framework is a key part of delivering great results.
Plus, you look like a legend?—?and you might just score yourself some repeat work if you’re lucky!
Next time you’re designing an interface, think more than the visuals?—?think about the product.
Nathan Allsopp is a Sydney-based Product Manager/Designer.
https://medium.com/media/96d08ab34921bdd17986cb5c0396842f/href
Interface designers — you need to be thinking product was originally published in UX Planet on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
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