Stumbling head-first into Product Design
At the company where I’ve worked for around three months as the in-house designer as I’m writing this, we just launched a new design of the product website for the SaaS platform. The website is the first ‘step’ in the complete rebranding and redesign of the entire system.
Ever since taking my vocational education as a webdeveloper I’ve done a lot of webdesign and development. Before starting out in the company as full-time designer I also did graphic design, motion design, logo design, app design, interface design and usability both freelance and during my education as an apprentice. I guess consider myself to be mostly and simply a Designer — a title which corresponds with that currently on my contract.
But when we were implementing the “Meet the Team” section on the new website the CTO put the title Product Designer under my name.
Just like that I graduated from Designer to Product Designer.
As far as I understand, Product Design links together many disciplines into one. As a Product Designer you dabble in user- and customer experience, apply usability principles, design interfaces and interactive experiences as well as help develop the creative strategy — also thinking about the business impact. Analytic thinking paired with traditional craftsmanship.
In some way it feels like the perfect fit for me. But having Product Designer as my title on our website…that’s like taking a full step forward. Right? That’s where shit gets serious. Product Design.
It actually wasn’t very long ago when I saw an article on Medium about transitioning into product design. I clearly remember skipping it, thinking “Product Design, hmm……. nah, probably not gonna do that. Ever.”
But as I’m apparently transitioning into Product Design after all, I’m beginning to draw some conclusions. Conclusions which run parallel with my current choice of reading material and the rising of Empathic Design.
Conclusions which might even be of a political character, as I’ve always been very aware of the power we designers have over our audiences. And the moral responsibility which comes with it.
Conclusions
My mission as a Product Designer isn’t designing a product which people will be dependent on. I don’t want to create another dumb system which demands attention around the clock.
Cat owners know the struggle.
We already have that in the bottom-less pits of social medias and their endless notifications and emails, specifically designed to fuel our FOMO.
It’s about time we design systems which set people free
I want to design systems free from biased opinions of how people are as the ideal users, clients or customers. How they should ideally use our systems and interact with our designs. Thinking they have all the time and patience in the world for our, specific and very special product. Users — people — are not ideal. Their work day is not ideal. Not when it’s Jane’s birthday and everyone forgets what they’re supposed to be doing because oh look there’s cake!
It’s about being able to go home and chill with our families instead of working all the time. Being able to get something out of the evenings as well, such as playing Dragon Age or writing semi-aggresive articles.
Instead of those FOMO-provoking notifications, why not just save the latest updates from yesterday after 4 or 5pm — into their tasks for today. Let them catch up over the morning coffee the next day so they’ll feel on top of things instead of months behind. Save that stack of messages for monday instead of dripping notifications throughout the weekend. Save them, so maybe our kids won’t grow up feeling completely insignificant because mommy and daddy had to answer work emails all the way through movie night.
No one wants a system which means more work.
It’s time we design for real life people and their real life problems
I’m sure you won’t fall down your chair in surprise if I say I’ve always had a fuck that kind of attitude towards academical theories in design.
An example is the overly-hyped, incredibly insular Personas — the ones I’ve personally encountered, at least, would’ve been more efficient as office bathroom “reading material.” They’re either distilled out from something as apathetic as data or just straight up made-up by someone out from their own opinions and prejudices. Neither tells us anything about the people at all.
All of us, myself included, form our own ideas of reality and everyone’s reality is different. The word on everyone’s lips these days is “bias”; we, as humans and even the most seasoned Designers, have glitches. We’re limited to and by our own experience and knowledge. So who knows the “real” reality? The “right” way? The answer is, no one does. There is no real reality. Just a bunch of different versions. But the first step to knowledge is realising the lack of it.
When designing for someone else’s reality, assumptions are a slippery slope, because they’re formed in our own reality. Personas, to me, does not form the proper connection or understanding of users and their realities. People do.
In our quest to design for people, we need to design for real people. Not how we perceive them and their situations. Nor how we believe they should be, the ambitious over-achieving and glorified workaholics who’re just waiting for life to fuck off so they can consume our product… But simply in who they are in their simple, honest beings. And honesty is a rare thing to find these days.
It’s time to talk about the imperfect and our own shortcomings. In usability it’s called human error, and spoiler alert, we all do it — not only our users.
In the imperfect reality “John Doe, 48, married with two kids” fucking hates your system because his new, younger, more tight-butted boss David forced it into the company. All because David attended high school with the now CEO of your system and they’re still best pals. But John spent the last 5–10 years of his career getting used to another system and now he has to learn yours. So every time John logs in, you can be damn well sure he’ll carefully note all the system errors and flaws and report them. Now how’s that for a User Journey? I’ll bet you no one’s written that ever on their Personas.
To me, Product Design is all about John Doe.
It’s about having empathy with his shitty situation and turning it into a decent workday where he may even be changing his opinions about the product. And though he probably still harbours a deep, deep resentment for younger-and-firmer-than-you boss-David…at least he’s getting some good work done so he can get home on time. And when his wife asks him “So how was your day, big daddy?” he can honestly answer; “Actually… It was okay.”
Thank you for reading!
I‘m pretty excited about doing lots more Product Design for our platform all renegade style. My conclusions in this article are heavily influenced by this awesome (Danish) book on behavioural design: “Jytte fra Marketing er desværre gået for i dag.” It’s a great read and I really can’t recommend it enough.
Also if you have any cool Product Design articles do send me the links! ✨
