The Things Junior UX Designers Should Do More Of (Not Just Design)

The Things Junior UX Designers Should Do More Of (Not Just Design)

Hardik Gandhi   January 17, 2018

As a designer starting out in the beginning of your career, you may not know what to expect during your first job. You could be given lots of work and because you are the new designer on team, you do things without question. You might think you are expected to know everything because nobody said you should seek out the things you need to help you.

Having worked in the design industry almost every summer in college, I’ve learned a thing or two about how a new designer, such as myself, can navigate through challenges and learn in environments based on implied messages of what we should or shouldn’t do. Knowing the basic tools and techniques of good design is essential, but it’s the small details surrounding how we work which can help us progress and open doors. Here are a few tips that growing designers should take into consideration during their first year on the job to accelerate career growth.

Asking for Help Doesn't Make You Stupid

It’s okay to ask for help, but the issue that some designers may allude to when they say asking for help is a big no-no is the phrasing. Instead of directly asking for help, ask for feedback and advice. If you need help with doing research, join a research session. If you need help with moving forward in a project, ask designers to join you in prioritizing ideas. This will provide you with direction. Instead of receiving a hard-cut answer, you receive validation and perspective, things that will help you develop your own point of view. Designers don’t receive answers, they problem solve to get there.

Saying “No” is better than saying “Yes” all the time*

Note the asterisk. You are in control of what you want to do. You can decide when you reply to that e-mail or if you want to go that meeting. We are often given so many things to do that we can’t do all of them, yet we think we have to. Many designers, especially in the beginning of their career, do everything they are told to do, and this distracts them from the work they need to do the most. Decide on what is most important to help get your work done and prioritize.

Don’t say yes for the things that get in the way of producing quality work.

Delegating tasks and prioritizing is hard, but if you can do that, you will get so much done (and more). It’s okay to say no for valid reasons because it tells people that you know what’s important.

Speak up

During a critique, we are excepted to provide feedback for our peers, but not everyone does it because they might be self concious of their thoughts, or they don’t make the effort to help. Don’t be selfish with ideas. Ideas are meant to be expressed and help our fellow designers design for the people. Feedback is a gift. Feedback is what results in more iterations and better experiences.

Take Breaks

I used to work hard constantly, whether it was at home, with friends and family…You name it. But then I realized, without fault, I will be working for the rest of my life and work isn’t ever really “done”. I was taking the time to work on something fleeting, when I could have been spending time with the people I loved and the things I loved to do outside of work. Also, too much work can increase stress which can increase burnout. It makes sense to do as much work as you can to get to a certain job or rank, but that takes time. Just do what you can and relax when you feel overworked or exausted. In the end, health is more important than work because without health, we can’t work.

Be Present

As tempting as it is to work from home, especially for people who have the privilege of doing so all the time, it is crucial to be present. Even if the quality of work has not been affected, as designers, collaboration is such an important aspect of the way we do things. Being present in the office can make all the difference, especially when working with the people on your team. It’s not a team if everyone isn’t present.

If you have any questions about design, message me on LinkedIn and I’ll write about it!

Links to some other cool reads:

• I interviewed at Facebook as a new grad. Here is what I learned about design
• Standing Up as a Design Leader
• Journey Mapping is the Key to Gaining Empathy
• Prepping for Design Interviews (My Microsoft Onsite Experience)
• UX is Grounded in Rationale, not Design
• The Types of Design Research every Designer should know NOW
• When did Design become so Easy?

To Build An Amazing Design Team, Founders Should Start Here

To Build An Amazing Design Team, Founders Should Start Here

Hardik Gandhi   January 17, 2018

Today, you’re going to learn how to build an amazing design team.

In most startups, design is often overlooked or seen as a nice-to-have instead of a must-have. But this mentality can quickly send startups on a one-way trip to the startup graveyard.

The first thing founders need to understand when thinking about the design of their mobile app or product is that design is not limited to the pixels. The design of an app is much more than pretty buttons and cool animations. The design is how the app is experienced from the moment it’s opened to the moment it’s closed. Your design can be the difference between building an app that people come back to over and over again and an app that is downloaded and never opened a second time.

Once you have a clear understanding of the important role that design plays in the success of your app, it’s important to realize that a design team’s success is determined by more than just the people you bring on board.

A design team’s success is also determined by the the roles they play, the tools they use, the culture they operate within and the structures that allow them to deliver results. Founders need to take each of these elements seriously if they want to assemble a high-quality design team and equip them for success.

Hiring The Right People For Design

Picking the right people for your design team is the most important of all. If you hire the wrong people, you’ll start down the wrong path and may eventually have to start all over with a new team that can actually deliver. Finding the right designers for your project can be challenging — but it’s not impossible.

Walk in to your search for the perfect design team knowing exactly what you need. Do you need one person who can be contracted for a short period of time, or are you looking to build a 3- to 4-person design team that will become a fundamental part of your startup’s DNA? Identifying which kind of team is right for you at this stage will be a huge factor in knowing where you should look and whom you should look for.

We’ve worked with all kinds of companies, from early-stage technical teams to startups with existing design teams and revenue. In both cases, MindSea was hired to help with design because of our ability to tackle mobile design challenges and deliver quality iOS and Android app experiences for our clients.

As you build your design team, it’s important to look at their previous work to see that they can deliver. It’s also important to take the time to speak with their past employers or clients to ensure that your prospective designers are reliable and easy to work with. If you can accomplish this, you’re more likely to find a successful design team than if you judged them solely on their portfolio.

Picking Roles For A Design Team

Like any other professional team, design teams should consist of assigned roles. Each role comes with a different scope of responsibilities, tasks and expertise. The structure in which these roles operate is an important factor, as it can make or break a team long-term. A lot of early-stage startups make the mistake of creating no clear roles for their design teams and hoping they will instead design by committee. In reality, the best approach for a design team is to establish a sense of structure.

Here’s what the typical roles on a design team look like:

Design Director: Directors push their teams to answer the tough questions about their decisions and are constantly trying to ensure that design decisions are based on reason, not gut instinct. The design director has the final say on the design team when it comes to decisions about the approach being taken.

Design Manager: Managers are responsible for making sure that the design team delivers on the overarching vision and successfully executes based on strategies and plans. Design managers understand how to make experiences that matter and how to help other designers do the same.

Designers: Designers come up with and implement ideas related to how the product works, how users interact with it, how it looks and how it behaves between frames. Within this role, there are a variety of specialties, and some design teams require a vast range of expertise — designers can take on roles in UX, illustration, animation and more. Together, this collaborative group will be on the front lines of bringing the project to life.

If you’re a large startup, hiring for each role would be an ideal scenario, but for early-stage startups, that’s not always a financially feasible solution. Keep in mind that roles and individuals don’t have to match up perfectly — one person can take on multiple roles. In small startups, it’s common to hire only one designer, and that individual takes on the triple role of design director, design manager and individual designer.

Limited resources are one reason that many early-stage startups outsource their app design to a third party. Our own partnership with Glue is a great example of how a third-party team can help a startup bring their ideas to life through design:

The Best Tools For A Design Team

It’s important to arm your team with the best tools of the trade.

There are a number of tools that can help designers craft a quality app, but not all designers are the same. Some designers have a preference for one tool over the next, so in the early days, you shouldn’t force your designer to use a specific tool just because you want them too. In a startup, you need to be optimizing for speed — if a designer is faster on one software than the next, let them use the tool that will take less time.

In this blog post, our design director, Reuben Hall, does a great job highlighting a handful of tools that designers use to plan and build beautiful apps. I strongly recommend that you take the time to check it out and consider these tools when you begin to think about your design process and what you’ll need to equip your team with.

Creating A Design-Friendly Culture

When you’re building your design team, another key component of the equation is the culture that surrounds your team. The culture of your organization as a whole will have a lasting impact on how work is developed and what your final product looks like.

Founders set the company culture within a startup. If you’re committed to open communication, it’s more likely that your team will follow suit. If you’re committed to embracing ideas from anyone regardless of their title, it’s more likely that your team will be too. The takeaway here is simple: Embrace the habits you hope to instill within your team to build a lasting corporate culture.

One of the most important parts of a healthy company culture is a commitment to design. Too many founders view design as a secondary element of the product, when in reality, the design of the product is what often determines its success or failure. Founders can help create a culture that celebrates design by enforcing regular design reviews, ensuring that design always has a seat at the table and hiring the best design talent possible.

Use Design Reviews To Improve Communication

Design reviews should happen throughout the design and development process. Early on in a project, a design review could be a quick meeting with another designer before presenting a concept to the larger team for a more in-depth design review. During development of an app, designers should regularly review in-progress builds to ensure the UX and layout of the app is as amazing as it was envisioned to be. At any stage of a project, a design review is an opportunity for improvement. Teams that overlook design reviews as a part of the process are often left scratching their heads wondering how they missed key features — once it’s too late.

While design reviews are tactical efforts that have an impact on culture, a startup’s design vision is also an important piece of the puzzle. Your design vision isn’t a scheduled action like a standing meeting, but rather a set of guiding ideas that must be communicated to the entire team from day one. It should act as the foundation of all design decisions, ensuring that when tough decisions need to be made, someone at the table is invested in the design of the product, not just the technical specs.

Wrapping Things Up

A quality design team can help a good product become something great with just a few weeks of work.

Not sure if you need a design team quite yet? We’d be happy to jump on a quick call, learn more about your vision and give you some insight based on our experiences helping other startups. Get in touch today!

Beyond the Rhetoric of Algorithmic Solutionism

Beyond the Rhetoric of Algorithmic Solutionism

Hardik Gandhi   January 14, 2018

If you ever hear that implementing algorithmic decision-making tools to enable social services or other high stakes government decision-making will increase efficiency or reduce the cost to taxpayers, know that you’re being lied to. When implemented ethically, these systems cost more. And they should.

Whether we’re talking about judicial decision making (e.g., “risk assessment scoring”) or modeling who is at risk for homelessness, algorithmic systems don’t simply cost money to implement. They cost money to maintain. They cost money to audit. They cost money to evolve with the domain that they’re designed to serve. They cost money to train their users to use the data responsibly. Above all, they make visible the brutal pain points and root causes in existing systems that require an increase of services.

Otherwise, all that these systems are doing is helping divert taxpayer money from direct services, to lining the pockets of for-profit entities under the illusion of helping people. Worse, they’re helping usher in a diversion of liability because time and time again, those in powerful positions blame the algorithms.

This doesn’t mean that these tools can’t be used responsibly. They can. And they should. The insights that large-scale data analysis can offer is inspiring. The opportunity to help people by understanding the complex interplay of contextual information is invigorating. Any social scientist with a heart desperately wants to understand how to relieve inequality and create a more fair and equitable system. So of course there’s a desire to jump in and try to make sense of the data out there to make a difference in people’s lives. But to treat data analysis as a savior to a broken system is woefully naive.

Doing so obfuscates the financial incentives of those who are building these services, the deterministic rhetoric that they use to justify their implementation, the opacity that results from having non-technical actors try to understand technical jiu-jitsu, and the stark reality of how technology is used as a political bludgeoning tool. Even more frustratingly, what data analysis does well is open up opportunities for experimentation and deeper exploration. But in a zero-sum context, that means that the resources to do something about the information that is learned is siphoned off to the technology. And, worse, because the technology is supposed to save money, there is no budget for using that data to actually help people. Instead, technology becomes a mirage. Not because the technology is inherently bad, but because of how it is deployed and used.

READ THIS BOOK!

Next week, a new book that shows the true cost of these systems is being published. Virginia Eubanks’ book “Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor” is a deeply researched accounting of how algorithmic tools are integrated into services for welfare, homelessness, and child protection. Eubanks goes deep with the people and families who are targets of these systems, telling their stories and experiences in rich detail. Further, drawing on interviews with social services clients and service providers alongside the information provided by technology vendors and government officials, Eubanks offers a clear portrait of just how algorithmic systems actually play out on the ground, despite all of the hope that goes into their implementation.

Eubanks eschews the term “ethnography” because she argues that this book is immersive journalism, not ethnography. Yet, from my perspective as a scholar and a reader, this is the best ethnography I’ve read in years. “Automating Inequality” does exactly what a good ethnography should do — it offers a compelling account of the cultural logics surrounding a particular dynamic, and invites the reader to truly grok what’s at stake through the eyes of a diverse array of relevant people. Eubanks brings you into the world of technologically mediated social services and helps you see what this really looks like on the ground. She showcases the frustration and anxiety that these implementations produce; the ways in which both social services recipients and taxpayers are screwed by the false promises of these technologies. She makes visible the politics and the stakes, the costs and the hope. Above all, she brings the reader into the stark and troubling reality of what it really means to be poor in America today.

“Automating Inequality” is on par with Barbara Ehrenreich’s “Nickel and Dimed” or Matthew Desmond’s “Evicted.” It’s rigorously researched, phenomenally accessible, and utterly humbling. While there are a lot of important books that touch on the costs and consequences of technology through case studies and well-reasoned logic, this book is the first one that I’ve read that really pulls you into the world of algorithmic decision-making and inequality, like a good ethnography should.

I don’t know how Eubanks chose her title, but one of the subtle things about her choice is that she’s (unintentionally?) offering a fantastic backronym for AI. Rather than thinking of AI as “artificial intelligence,” Eubanks effectively builds the case for how we should think that AI often means “automating inequality” in practice.

This book should be mandatory for anyone who works in social services, government, or the technology sector because it forces you to really think about what algorithmic decision-making tools are doing to our public sector, and the costs that this has on the people that are supposedly being served. It’s also essential reading for taxpayers and voters who need to understand why technology is not the panacea that it’s often purported to be. Or rather, how capitalizing on the benefits of technology will require serious investment and a deep commitment to improving the quality of social services, rather than a tax cut.

Please please please read this book. It’s too important not to.

Data & Society will also be hosting Virginia Eubanks to talk about her book on January 17th at 4PM ET. She will be in conversation with Julia Angwin and Alondra Nelson. The event is sold out, but it will be livestreamed online. Please feel free to join us there!