A while ago, my boss told me that designers are product managers with visual skills. It makes sense if you think that the majority of the activities we do on a daily basis has to do with using soft skills for things such as stakeholder management, work prioritization, and conflict resolution.
Product management to understand
The job of a product designer is much more than creating interfaces. Daily, you have to understand and balance business viability, user desirability, and technology feasibility. All these moving parts have due dates, budgets, and headcounts pulling from different directions. Then it becomes all about communicating and creating consensus to find that sweet spot for innovation.
Visual skills to reach agreements
We all have solutions to a problem. But sometimes that isn’t enough. The real challenge is how do you communicate those ideas to the people around you so they can understand and align behind them. How can you achieve true simplicity after going pretty far down the rabbit hole of complexity?
Think that every person involved has their own definition of success. And they see challenges from their own perspective. Designers we work consciously to keep our biases and the biases of our stakeholders in check. We have to be there to consider the opposite so we can develop a growth mindset for and with the team.
Become a visual facilitator so everyone regardless of their role and level of involvement can remember concepts easily. Making complex things sound simple is so challenging! The best glue I found to mix all these learnings is by creating a story. Using characters. Metaphors. Stories are a powerful way of communicating ideas; they signpost our experiences, make sense of what we know, and create continuity.
Once you pulled all these ideas out of people’s minds, use your visuals to communicate with internal teams, upper management, and external customers. You will capture attention, engage emotions. And most importantly: you’ll be able to persuade people.
Learn more
- The sweet spot for innovation. Kristann Orton.
- I’m glad we all agree. Jeff Patton.
- Another lens. AirBnB Design.