The product manager and the UX designer are two professional roles that have so many overlapping responsibilities that it’s bound to create some areas of friction. To give you an idea, here are a few of the things they’re both responsible for -

Product managers and UX teams are expected to work seamlessly in the best interests of the product. Both are to play to their respective strengths and take charge, collaborating to deliver the best product possible. Needless to say, both the product manager and the UX design team share a common goal, that of creating a product that fulfills user needs and balances them out with the business goals.

5 tips to help PMs ace their UX design collaboration

1. Speak the way the designers speak

Good communication is key to any successful collaboration, and the same principle applies to PMs and UX designers. For those just starting out as PMs, it can seem challenging to be the bridge between the designers and product needs. PMs bear the responsibility of communicating user needs to the designers in the context of their pain points. They also have to ensure that the UX design team has enough autonomy to deliver the goods.

Therefore, it is imperative that PMs know and understand how to convey the right message to the designers without losing it in translation, as is the case in most PM-design team interactions. For example,

‘Increase the conversation rate’ can be better understood by designers as ‘Simplify the onboarding process’.

Instead of ‘Can this button be slightly bigger?’ try saying ‘How can we ensure the users don’t miss this feature?’

Talking to designers in a manner that focuses on enhancing the usability would be far more effective than probably throwing business goals their way. Doing so ensures that the designers know exactly what to do and that your intended goals are achieved.

2. Lay down metrics in a way that they understand

Metrics are a priority to PMs and UX designers alike. However, it is important to ensure that both parties are on the same page in terms of what defines success for the product. To do so, the PM has to sit with the design team when the metrics are being laid out. What this does is that it outlines what needs to be done in order to achieve the intended outcome.

Success metrics such as task satisfaction rate or time spent on task rate reveal insights into the users’ actual versus perceived experience. However, when PMs let the designers know the intent behind the metric, they can trust the designers to create an output that fulfills it.

For example, the UX designer would do well to know that ‘The user should be able to register a complaint in less than 3 steps’, rather than reduce the time spent on task rate by 20%.

3. Never, ever ask them to ‘make it pop’

Forget PMs and designers — every individual has a unique perspective that enables their opinions. But in a professional setup, there are certain expectations and requirements to be fulfilled and there are no two ways about it. While a PM and a designer come from varied schools of thought, they are expected to find a middle ground and work in the best interests of the product.

Providing feedback is one of the topmost and perhaps most complex tasks assigned to the PM. Conveying feedback needs to be done tactfully to deliver the right message and ensure the expected output. Therefore, saying ‘I don’t know what you can do to fix this, but I want it done by eod today’ can have way worse consequences not just on the output, but on the PM-designer relationship as well.

Remember, UX designers are focused on providing the best user experience and therefore, the PM needs to convey feedback from that context. So, instead of saying that ‘we need to make this pop’, try ‘Users are unaware of this feature that’s in the dropdown list. Can we make it more accessible?’

4. Do not allow conflicts to flare

Disagreements are an integral part of all relationships. However, the way they are resolved determines whether they flare into a full-scale war or end up in respectful agreement.

Fortunately, resolving UX-related conflicts is rather simple than most people think, and that includes designers and PMs. The sure-fire way of dousing any design disagreement is to validate it with users. Conducting usability tests reveals all that is right or wrong with the product and leaves no space for personal opinions or ambiguity.

Another way of setting arguments to rest is to apply standardized metrics such as task accomplishment rate or feature usage rate and base decisions on the results.

5. Resist the urge to micromanage

This final piece of advice is universal for all those in management — refrain from micromanaging team members. Remember, the PM is responsible for managing product progress at the bird’s eye level while the design team takes care of the on-ground work. The most well-loved and successful PMs are those who trust their design team to take care of the actual design process, while they supplement it with their astute product knowledge and vision. A product manager’s job is not to regulate pixels but to ensure that the UX designers have all the user needs, stories, and research data to make the right design decisions.

The product manager-UX designer relationship is just like any other — it requires constant nurturing. These tips can help newer PMs get a headstart in what would be an ongoing commitment toward cementing their bond with the design team. Do you have any more tips to share from your own experiences? We’d love to read them in the comments.