Ask A Designer: An Open Conversation with Product & UX Designers

If there’s one thing all UX designers, product designers, and anyone working with design can relate to, it’s the plethora of questions that they have to deal with on a daily basis.

And our designers were no exception to this.

So, in an open conversation with no holds barred, we decided to sit with five designers from our design team to discover:

• what these questions tend to look like,
• how designers deal with these queries regularly, and
• the uniquely distinct perspectives of each UI/UX designer in the field of user experience design.

For the sake of this article, we chose three questions to ask each of our five designers:

Question 1: What is the most common question you are asked by clients?

Question 2: How do you negotiate deadlines with POs and stakeholders?

Question 3: What is your approach when presenting your work?

The answers to these questions are meant to equip other designers to deal with similar situations. These questions were shortlisted out of many more that our designers highlighted, but discussing these will suffice as a starting point to not just get to know your designers better, but to also facilitate you in your field of experience design.

Question 1

What is the most common question you are asked by clients?

Response 1:

• Would you recommend this approach based on UX?
• What is your UX opinion if we do this particular thing?
• Can we do A/B testing to make a final decision?
• How can we improve this particular journey based on UX?
• Can you provide some feedback on the current pages and let us know your thoughts on improvements?
• What is the best practice for serviceability check for user experience?

— Ella Rabiei
Senior Product Designer

Response 2:

“Typically, the most common question designers run into is, “When will this be ready for review?””

I find that there are generally 2 kinds of questions that a client will ask; “What is the cost? (in time, funds, effort, or stress)” or “Can you explain your thinking?”. While these questions may seem like an oversimplification (as it probably is), understanding the underlying intent of these questions helps me, as a designer, ensure I’m providing answers that are effective and concise.

Being pedantic and looking at my typical question above, that boils down to “How much time with this cost the project”. And why not? Time is as finite a resource as a budget is.”

— Dana Mitchell
Senior Product Designer

Response 3:

“When can you have this done?”

This raises an important point, which is that often the emphasis is placed on quantity/output rather than quality. It also highlights the client’s lack of understanding of the UX designer’s role, which is a weak link in the chain of product design.”

— Véronique Janosy
Senior Product Designer

Response 4:

“How fast can you finish? Will it be quick? Can you do it sooner?”

— Carlos Salguero
Senior Product Designer

Response 5:

• We want to do a redesign. Where do we start?
• We want to add a new feature to this page. Can you implement this solution?
• We have these requirements, and we are looking for this solution. When can you deliver this?

“Clients need help to uncover problems. Like most humans, they are very good at communicating solutions. My job is to help them find the best solution by first identifying the problems. This is called problem-solution fit. A solution must fit a problem. If the solution does not fit a problem, it is not worth doing it. Furthermore, the solution must be appropriate and not perfect.”

— Amir Abura
Lead Product Designer

Question 2

How do you discuss and deal with deadlines while working with Product Owners (POs) and stakeholders? If the requested deadline is too tight, how do you negotiate?

Response 1:

“The POs mostly set a deadline and try to adjust it with the designer’s capacity. Depending on the situation, there are several ways to deal with it:

• If the deadline is for “Tomorrow morning” and it is mid-day already, it depends on the task’s value. If it is a small design request, like updating a specific page, I would do it while working on other tasks. If the task is a major design request, I’d let my manager know that I need to pause some of the work to deliver the task, and I would try to see how I can expedite the design process and, if possible, use some of the currently designed pages as my placeholders.
• To negotiate, I always try to look at the big picture and see how I can accommodate the client’s request and my current capacity; I’d also ask to see if there is any possibility of pushing the deadline to some days in the future to avoid the conflict between the deliveries.
• I’d also ask POs what goals they are trying to achieve with the requested design and try to deliver it in semi-high fidelity mocks instead of high fid versions.”

— Ella Rabiei
Senior Product Designer

Response 2:

“For myself, the easiest way to prioritize is to directly ask what the priorities are. When I have several tasks on the table and not nearly enough time, I start by giving each task a rough time estimate and lay out what I will be able to accomplish in the given time frame.

Armed with this knowledge, the PO or stakeholders are better able to understand what my current workload is and decide what the focus will be, hence setting the expectations for the deadline and ensuring that everyone is on the same page.

Alternatively, it could be agreed to reduce the amount of work involved; instead of creating a high-fidelity design, a wireframe could be produced instead. Concessions like this allow for the work to begin and start the iterative design process on its merry way.”

— Dana Mitchell
Senior Product Designer

Response 3:

“I’m very up-front about it. If it hasn’t been mentioned during the brief, I’ll always bring it up; this helps me to prioritize and also to avoid nasty surprises later. More often than not, somebody’s got some kind of date in mind–whether it’s a hard date that developers need assets by or a more general one, like “sometime during Q2″– and that’s a good starting point. Knowing the timeline helps me field questions like “when can you have this done?”, since I already know what the projected timeline is. If a timeline is too short, I voice my concern to the PO, and then we work together to reprioritize whatever’s on my plate. I always try to remember that there are only so many hours in a workday, and I try to be as honest as possible when it comes to my workload and capacity. When stakeholders are up-front about deadlines, then I can be better prepared to manage expectations.”

— Véronique Janosy
Senior Product Designer

Response 4:

“I explain the intricacies of the work and only negotiate if PO is being reasonable and understanding. Otherwise, UX requires a minimum of 2 weeks and a couple of grooming sessions to consider a wireframe “ready for sprint”.”

— Carlos Salguero
Senior Product Designer

Response 5:

“There is no perfect solution. There is only an appropriate solution given the time and resources available. This is how I negotiate. What can we do now with the time given and resources available? And more importantly, is it worth it? Is there a problem-solution fit? My job is to provide this analysis, so the PO has more info to make a decision: let’s do this now and iterate after or let’s not do this now and spend more time on the problem.”

— Amir Abura
Lead Product Designer

Question 3

What is your approach when presenting your work?

Response 1:

“This question is a bit general when it comes to the audience; I’d try to respond in different scenarios:

• In General: I’d prepare a fictional or real scenario that includes the research data based on the actual product/design subject and gather the most common/potential pain points plus the written ideation on how to resolve the problems or create a better environment to avoid the potential problems. Then I’d prepare the low-fidelity mockup to discuss the user journey and the product’s process path. And once I showcased it, I’d prepare the high-fid mocks to present the finalized idea with showing the details for the solved/improved path, and at the end, I’d present it to the client, including POs, Stakeholders, marketing executives, etc.
• To the POs and the Dev team: After updating the mocks on Abstract, I’d share my screen in our review session to present the changes/ ideas/ new outcomes on fictional scenarios. I would receive the feedback and comments and will apply them to the design before presenting to the stakeholders.
• To Stakeholders: mostly happens after the [presentation to PO’s] session, once everything is updated, the POs would proceed with presenting the design.”

— Ella Rabiei
Senior Product Designer

Response 2:

“Whenever presenting my work, the first thing I do is prepare myself for feedback. Feedback is a vital part of any design process, but it’s not always easy to swallow. I prepare myself to stay grounded and receptive.

Next, I consider the audience to whom I am presenting. The goals of each team within a project, myself included, will be different; the artifacts created will be used differently by each team, and I try to keep that under consideration. At the end of the day, my goal is to help set clear expectations to ensure that everyone knows what we are driving towards.”

— Dana Mitchell
Senior Product Designer

Response 3:

“In my job, I don’t have to do any kind of formal presentation. I’ll usually present what I have to the PO, who will then bring back my work to marketing. The PO acts as a buffer between design and marketing because the interactions can get pretty intense. So when presenting to the PO, I pretty much just tour the component, noting where the design followed or deviated from the original requirements and explaining why. I may have a few different options to present, and the PO and I will usually discuss which one we align with.

When presenting to developers, I start by introducing the purpose of the component (if it’s a net-new component) or, if it’s just a variant, I’ll be sure to lead with that. I then talk about the various technical aspects of the component and how it may be similar to or different from either its parent component or a similar one. I then open the floor for questions.”

— Véronique Janosy
Senior Product Designer

Response 4:

“I put myself in my audience’s shoes. How can I make this easy for anyone to understand? I make flows, add arrows, include annotations, and, if time allows, create a prototype with all possibilities.”

— Carlos Salguero
Senior Product Designer

Response 5:

“Present the problem, evidence, explorations, and the best solution that fits the problem with the time and resources available. Again there is no perfect solution. Only an appropriate solution that benefits the customer and the business in the present moment with the resources, technology, and time available.”

— Amir Abura
Lead Product Designer

Takeaway

As with any designer, I, as a lead designer myself, have always been at the receiving end of the aforementioned questions, amongst many others.

Therefore, this effort was made to not just bring these questions to light but to truly get to discover the perspectives and thoughts of other product and UX designers as well.

After all, it’s a designer who can best understand another designer, and this candid discussion with my design team provided an opportunity to uncover their unique, creative personalities that make them so good at what they do.

FAQs

What does a UX designer do day to day?

In their daily lives, UX designers often work with Product Owners (POs) and other stakeholders to capture the project requirements, conduct research, ideate, design, and demonstrate how a new feature or product is going to work and why any design changes would be required.

Does UX design require graphic design?

Graphic design is one of the many aspects of UI and Product Design. Having a foundational understanding of graphic design is what drives good interfaces: understanding visual hierarchy, good typography, understanding how to use color, etc.

Is UX design in demand?

While it is a relatively nascent field, UX design is very much in demand with an exceptional career outlook. In fact, the demand for UX designers continues to grow, leading to the field of UX design being included in one of the 50 best jobs in 2022, according to Glassdoor, amongst other similar rankings.

Is UX design coding?

Coding is not required, but understanding HTML/CSS code is an asset as a UX/UI or Product Designer. It helps in communicating with developers to speak their language.