Landing into the state of approval

Can you tell me why Jeetu is a product manager and you are a designer.? I asked this to one of my colleague during a 1:1 meeting.

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My colleague shrugged her shoulder and said “I am designer because I love solving problems, what else?”

I added further to the response by saying that Jeetu is a PM because he works with the business, and you are a designer because you work with the users. Today the debate is not going to be about business versus users it is about how complex the product design space is becoming and why we cannot ignore key business drivers. While the primary responsibility of a UX team is to create delightful experiences, it is also critical to understand the business drivers that drive the overall business objectives. These business drivers could be anything, and here are a few.

• Speed of execution in the advent of beating a prospective competition.
• Timing in order to take advantage of the favourable market.
• Prioritise customer promises.
• Customer acquisition at early stages of the product and co-create.
• Keeping an eye on the trends to build customer strategies.

What is a Designer Mindset?

• Always strive to improve your craft.
• Less problem-focussed and more solution-focussed, and frequently seen to be falling in love with the solution.
• Continue to delve deeper and iterate on every minor interaction which is a good practice but shouldn’t be at the cost of delivery priorities.
• A powerful user and process advocate.
• The thought process of a designer is sometimes linear at times.
• Short-sightedness is common trait.

What is a product mindset?

• Dealing with uncertainties and ambiguity is common.
• Risk taker, strong advocate for trial and error.
• A master of domain and market opportunities.
• Understand customer pulse like no other.
• Crazy about deadlines.
• Give utmost importance to business decisions.
• Be prepared to sacrifice UX quality in order to launch a product.

While product design is becoming more popular, it is also becoming more complex as a discipline. The decision about when and how to involve the design team in the product development process is driven entirely by the business dynamics.

As a designer, it is painful and frustrating to see that many decisions related to the product are made without the involvement of designers. However, it is also critical to act with empathy, adjust our thought process, and land in a state of approval. A good balance of design process and business priority is always effective.

This mindset shift from design to product is critical for designers in adopting a growth mindset. Designers should use systems thinking to zoom out to get a holistic picture of how the individual pieces are connected to larger systems. While providing delightful and intuitive experiences is a differentiator, prioritising business decisions and making trade-offs always pays off.