Teams. This is the 4th in a 7-part series on how to get a team to implement your recommendations. Tip #1 was: Hide Your Top 3 Recommendations. Tip #2 was Say “You”, “They”, “Customers”, “Users”, or “Research”. Don’t say “I”.
Teams. Lately, I haven’t been making friends with people who work at design agencies. I think it’s something I said. It’s definitely something I said. In fact, I can tell you exactly what I said.
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Teams. In almost every organization, design is a team activity. Yet how often do we sit down and discuss how the best teams work? To understand what it takes to create great designs, we’ve spent time with dozens of teams, some of whom are great at getting creative engaging designs out the door. And some that, well, could use a little more practice. Or something.
Teams. Sometimes it’s easier to do everything yourself instead of collaborating, isn’t it? If you’re an information architect, there are some compelling reasons to call all the shots:The project starts with you, so you get to make all the initial decisions yourself. No one else on the project has that liberty. You have firm start and end dates, after which you can move on to other work.
Teams. [Continuing on the theme of designers who can code. ] If you’re a designer, imagine you had a chance to work with two development teams. Team 1: One team has top-notch developers who know virtually nothing about design. They can code miracles, but the designs of their applications are horrible and frustrating to use.
Teams. If you want to invest your team into a product idea keep asking them for feedback starting from the initial sketch all the way to the launch. In our Google Tech Talk we spoke of how important it was to have everyone on our team (engineering, marketing, design, product) providing feedback from start all the way to launch of Verify. Here are the benefits we saw: Instead of just presenting your idea to people, you're asking them for their opinion.
Teams. If you’re in a room filled with designers, bring up the topic of whether it’s valuable for a designer to also code. Immediately, the room will divide faster than Moses split the Red Sea. One side will tell you coding is an essential skill, while the other will vehemently argue how it dilutes the designer’s value. Interestingly, it isn’t the designers who get to decide if coding is a valuable skill.
Teams. A few weeks back, I watched a conversation on the Interaction Design Association’s (IxDA) discussion list that tried to assess whether one can call themselves a designer if they can’t draw. I’m not worried about what people call themselves, but the discussion about whether drawing is an essential skill captured my attention.
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