Chapter 7 | Choose A Message

Chapter 7 Part 1: Business

💡One of the best ways to make a case for your designs is to directly connect it to the needs of the business.

Helps Achieve A Goal

Stakeholders always appreciate connecting your solution to the goals of the business.

[Design] will affect [goals] because [reason].

Ex) Removing the login requirement will reduce abandonment because users can bypass registration and still see promotions even if they aren’t logged in.

Facilitates A Usecase

Everything we do is about designing around a particular use case, user story, or feature set.

Communicates Branding

If you chose that style because that’s what the brand guide defines, bring that to the attention of your stakeholders.

The end result is better collaboration and a more comprehensive branding guide.

Chapter 7 Part 2: Design

💡We have design reasons for why we did what we did.

Uses A Common Pattern

Purposefully choosing a pattern because it is widely understood can be a great way to build a case for your decisions.

Draws The User’s Attention

We need to communicate that we’re not only putting things on the page in a way that looks good but that we’re trying to draw users into the application and lead them to action with appropriate design elements.

Creates The Flow For The User

You need to pay careful attention to how your decisions will affect the flow you’ve created. Don’t let your stakeholders break that without their first understanding why you did it that way.

Chapter 7 Part 3: Research

💡 Using data, user testing, and other research is the most compelling justification for our design decisions.

Validated By Data

Using data to support your design decisions is the golden ticket to getting support because it is the most scientific way of demonstrating that your designs are having the intended effect.

There are two types of data

•Existing data: data we already have available that we can use to help us make decisions now.

•Reflective data: the data we collected after changing our design and comparing the before and after.

To get the attention of your stakeholders, these are the phrase that empathizes with your use of data, such as

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“According to our analytics…”

“We have data that we suggest…”

“We are tracking this metric and...”

However, you should always be prepared to provide the data that you cite even if you don’t have it on hand.

A best practice is to visually show the data in a simple way

Revealed In Testing

Demonstrating good design through a connection with a usability study is a very effective way of making a case for your decisions because it shows that your ideas a working with real people.

💡The best way to communicate our insights for user testing sessions is to assemble a lot of slides with quotes from a few select users and maybe even a video clip showing the problem areas.

Supported By Other Research

Develop the habit of saving useful research in a project folder or keeping a list in a shared document so that we can easily provide it to other people.

When using other external research to support your decisions, remember to:

•Note the title, author, URL/source, and date.

•Write a short summary of the post of a sentence about how relates you your project.

•Provide the list of references to your stakeholders when they ask.

•Find the research to support other viewpoints of a balanced understanding.

•Give your stakeholders the chance to consider it or respond with their own.

Chapter 7 Part 4: Limitations

💡We can’t always do what our clients want, simply because of other factors that are beyond our control or because we’re trying to adhere to standards in design and programming.

Not Enough Resources

Spending too much time on something that’s not possible is not an effective use of time.

💡Four main areas seem to affect web and application design more than others.

Support: There isn’t enough internal support to maintain it over the long term. These support roles are an important consideration for how we design, and factoring it into our decision process is an important point to clarify.

People: There are not enough designers or developers who can actually create it within the time and constraints given. perhaps it is only a short-term problem, but not having enough people is a legitimate reason for scaling our designs.

Money: The budget is insufficient for acquiring the services or technology needed to make it happen. We must curb our designs to account for a limit in funding. Making this an explicit reason for your design decisions is important.

Time: There is not enough time to implement the designs, given the current requirements. That is why so many teams begin with a minimum viable product and iterate over time. In reality, we are always scaling back ideas to fit the current calendar.

Limited By Technology

Often, these constraints cannot be foreseen when creating the original designs, and it is only during implementation that we have to make these adjustments.

Complies With A Standard

We have to follow the “rules” that are set forth on the developing side. This sometimes results in making changes to our design to accommodate these standards.

Ex). Accessibility, Standard HTML control types.