There is one huge thing that a lot of designers are taking care of but eventually, it is not pay off as much as you think. This thing is…

Solving problems that don’t exist.

I bet you’ve done this a lot of times in your career or you’re still doing it. While designing the app or website you decided to stop your main task and say -

— „No, I have to take care of [something that you’ve noticed] now.”

It could be redesign: the style of the buttons, changing spacings, resizing icons, replacing certain old patterns with new ones, or maybe you’ve noticed the usability of components is not the best. Eventually, you’ve spent extra 3 days doing something that is completely not associated with your main task or goal…

But what’s wrong with it? If I see problems in the product then I should fix them?!

It may sound crazy but in so many products — YES, you should don’t take care of something else NOW. I can’t remember how often I made this mistake. My client’s goal was to make an audit of his product but during this, I decided intuitively to redesign navigation because, in my opinion, it wasn’t the best so I opened Figma and spent 2 days on that.

While he asked me about the results of the audit then I showed him my alternative navigation because I’ve seen some problems with it. I was confused when he asked me one more time — „Okay but what are the results of the audit?” and he wanted to know how I realized the task he needed…

The problem is when it’s a problem.

If you see a lack of feature, or usability & accessibility issues with the product then write it down and report to the product manager but… don’t lose time fixing problems that don’t exist.

What I mean by „doesn’t exist” is — If you see a certain problem but users don’t report it and they’re able to use the product then it’s not a problem at this point. Thekey to developing a product and growing it — is to focus on what is essential for the users and what is holding them back.

Prioritization is a key to the success of the product.

Your design is not a piece of art but a piece of business. Let me explain it to you in a one-sentence:

If you would keep focus in your product on things that are important to YOU then probably YOU would be the one and only user.

That’s why prioritizing problems is so important to grow the product. If you have filters feature that is essential to use the app and users have problems with it then spending time on fixing splash screen animations can be not the best idea.

The largest products had just a few essentials.

While looking at Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, or YouTube, you’ll see popular platforms with dozens of features. But have you ever wondered how these products were looking at the begging?

Usually, it was just ONE or a few essential features like sending disappearing selfies, uploading a video, or publishing a photo with filters. A similar thing is going on with that why a lot of products are looking ugly and people still use them — I wrote a whole article about it.

Short recap

1. If you see problems — write them down, send them to the manager and add them to the backlog.
2. Focus on essential things — that block and hold back your users.
3. If the team prioritized tasks —don’t spend time on other things that look like a problem to YOU.
4. Don’t focus on problems that don’t exist — disliking something by you is not a priority metric.