Articulating Design Decisions

Talking to people about your designs might seem like a basic skill, but it can be difficult to do efficiently and well. And, in many cases, how you communicate about your work with stakeholders, clients, and other non-designers is more critical than the designs themselves—simply because the most articulate person usually wins. This practical guide focuses on principles, tactics, and actionable methods for presenting your designs. Whether you design UX, websites, or products, you’ll learn how to win over anyone who has influence over the project—with the goal of creating the best experience for the end user. Walk through the process of preparing for and presenting your designs Understand stakeholder perspectives, and learn how to empathize with them Cultivate both implicit and explicit listening skills Learn tactics and formulas for expressing the most effective response to feedback Discover why the way you follow through is just as crucial as the meeting itself Educate your stakeholders by sharing the chapter from this book on how to work with designers

Annotation Every designer has had to justify designs to non-designers, yet most lack the ability to explain themselves in a way that is compelling and fosters agreement. The ability to effectively articulate design decisions is critical to the success of a project, because the most articulate person often wins. This practical book provides principles, tactics and actionable methods for talking about designs with executives, managers, developers, marketers and other stakeholders who have influence over the project with the goal of winning them over and creating the best user experience.

Annotation Every designer has had to justify designs to non-designers, yet most lack the ability to explain themselves in a way that is compelling and fosters agreement. The ability to effectively articulate design decisions is critical to the success of a project, because the most articulate person often wins. This practical book provides principles, tactics and actionable methods for talking about designs with executives, managers, developers, marketers and other stakeholders who have influence over the project with the goal of winning them over and creating the best user experience.

Real critique has become a lost skill among collaborative teams today. Critique is intended to help teams strengthen their designs, products, and services, rather than be used to assert authority or push agendas under the guise of "feedback." In this practical guide, authors Adam Connor and Aaron Irizarry teach you techniques, tools, and a framework for helping members of your design team give and receive critique. Using firsthand stories and lessons from prominent figures in the design community, this book examines the good, the bad, and the ugly of feedback. You’ll come away with tips, actionable insights, activities, and a cheat sheet for practicing critique as a part of your collaborative process. This book covers: Best practices (and anti-patterns) for giving and receiving critique Cultural aspects that influence your ability to critique constructively When, how much, and how often to use critique in the creative process Facilitation techniques for making critiques timely and more effective Strategies for dealing with difficult people and challenging situations

User experience doesn’t happen on a screen; it happens in the mind, and the experience is multidimensional and multisensory. This practical book will help you uncover critical insights about how your customers think so you can create products or services with an exceptional experience. Corporate leaders, marketers, product owners, and designers will learn how cognitive processes from different brain regions form what we perceive as a singular experience. Author John Whalen shows you how anyone on your team can conduct "contextual interviews" to unlock insights. You’ll then learn how to apply that knowledge to design brilliant experiences for your customers. Learn about the "six minds" of user experience and how each contributes to the perception of a singular experience Find out how your team—without any specialized training in psychology—can uncover critical insights about your customers’ conscious and unconscious processes Learn how to immediately apply what you’ve learned to improve your products and services Explore practical examples of how the Fortune 100 used this system to build highly successful experiences

WE DESIGN TO ELICIT RESPONSES from people. We want them to buy something, read more, or take action of some kind. Designing without understanding what makes people act the way they do is like exploring a new city without a map: results will be haphazard, confusing, and inefficient. This book combines real science and research with practical examples to deliver a guide every designer needs. With this book you’ll design more intuitive and engaging apps, software, websites and products that match the way people think, decide and behave. INCREASE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF YOUR PRODUCTS. Apply psychology and behavioral science to your designs. Here are some of the questions this book will answer: • What grabs and holds attention. • What makes memories stick? • What is more important, peripheral or central vision? • Can you predict the types of errors people will make? • What is the limit to someone’s social circle? • What line length for text is best? • Are some fonts better than others? These are just a few of the questions that the book answers in its deep-dive exploration of what makes people tick.

Bad design is everywhere, and its cost is much higher than we think. In this thought-provoking book, authors Jonathan Shariat and Cynthia Savard Saucier explain how poorly designed products can anger, sadden, exclude, and even kill people who use them. The designers responsible certainly didn’t intend harm, so what can you do to avoid making similar mistakes? Tragic Design examines real case studies that show how certain design choices adversely affected users, and includes in-depth interviews with authorities in the design industry. Pick up this book and learn how you can be an agent of change in the design community and at your company. You’ll explore: Designs that can kill, including the bad interface that doomed a young cancer patient Designs that anger, through impolite technology and dark patterns How design can inadvertently cause emotional pain Designs that exclude people through lack of accessibility, diversity, and justice How to advocate for ethical design when it isn’t easy to do so Tools and techniques that can help you avoid harmful design decisions Inspiring professionals who use design to improve our world

Customers who have inconsistent, broken experiences with products and services are understandably frustrated. But it’s worse when people inside these companies can’t pinpoint the problem because they’re too focused on business processes. This practical book shows your company how to use alignment diagrams to turn valuable customer observations into actionable insight. With this unique tool, you can visually map your existing customer experience and envision future solutions. Product and brand managers, marketing specialists, and business owners will learn how experience diagramming can help determine where business goals and customer perspectives intersect. Once you’re armed with this data, you can provide users with real value. Mapping Experiences is divided into three parts: Understand the underlying principles of diagramming, and discover how these diagrams can inform strategy Learn how to create diagrams with the four iterative modes in the mapping process: setting up a mapping initiative, investigating the evidence, visualizing the process, and using diagrams in workshops and experiments See key diagrams in action, including service blueprints, customer journey maps, experience maps, mental models, and spatial maps and ecosystem models