Selling a design-centered approach

Selling an idea is hard. It requires confidence, expertise, tact, and patience. Working in the tech industry, it’s the hardest part of my job and, if I’m being honest, I’m still figuring out a good way to do it.

Selling the value of design can be a difficult task. Especially to folks who have been “successful” without it in the past. I put “successful” in quotes, because I’ve found that it means different things to different people (more on that below). Until recently, the idea that someone could be at the peak of their career in the tech industry, and never encountered a user-centered design process was completely foreign to me. But it happens, more often than I thought.

Here’s a few things I’ve accidentally learned through my time selling a “user-centered design” approach:

Define “success”

What does “success” look like? It may mean different things to everyone involved in a project. A good starting point is getting consensus on what “success” looks like. Depending on who you ask, you’ll get a different answer.

Many times, when someone talks about the goals of a project, they focus on qualifiers, and not actual results. Things like being under budget, or on time, or replacing/improving an existing process. These are all great, and may be key metrics in determining the success of a project, but they’re not the results. They qualify some ‘x’ deliverable that’s more important.

If you produce an unusable hunk of junk under budget and on time, will everyone be happy? Shifting the conversation away from the qualifiers can help everyone to start thinking about the end-users, which helps frame everything from then on under that light.

I’m often tasked with replacing an existing piece of software because the owners don’t like the way it looks. I love that scenario, because it’s a great shoe-in-the-door to start talking about a user-centered approach. Just making the owners happy with the way it looks shouldn’t be good enough: making the users love it is the real goal.

At the beginning of a project, I’ll try and shift the focus away from what people like to see (what they think looks “good”) and all attention to what will make the experience more effective for the users.

It seems like an obvious goal, but it’s one worth being obvious about. You sell the big idea, by selling a bunch of really small ones. Focusing on the user can be an easy thing to sell, and it helps set up all your future conversations the right way: everything goes back to the users.

There’s no magic monologue that will make your cohorts putty in your hands. In my experience, those “Don Draper” moments are pure fantasy. You earn another’s trust through dozens of small conversations and interactions.

Be compassionate

Learn to appreciate and value someone else’s experiences, even if they don’t appreciate yours. I don’t know all the answers, so I try not to act like it. There may be some clients or colleagues (usually ones with less experience) who trust you by default. You may not need to work that hard to earn heir trust, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t listen to them.

I think far more often, trust has to be earned. I’m not very successful when I try to steamroll my way over someone. Maybe a decision goes my way in the short-term, but I’ve risked my relationship and a collaborative dynamic in the process. If my client doesn’t feel like they can collaborate with me, I’ve failed.

Educate

If you truly value your client’s perspective, sharing your point of view and recommendations is the natural next step. Knowing “how” to solve a problem isn’t enough. You need to know how to educate someone about your thought process, your reasoning, and draw on your past experiences.

Packing that knowledge up in a way that can be understood by someone else isn’t automatic. It requires preparation. Understand the problem and your solution backwards and forwards.

Story time! One day, I was in a client meeting. We were reviewing designs I’d made the week prior, based on user research exercises. I thought I was prepared: I could respond to any inquiry about the design and cite my reasoning, and our approach behind it, and was ready to consider feedback and make changes.

Unexpectedly, I hit a snag. Without getting into the details of the design, the client asked me to add an element where I didn’t think it belonged. I replied with my thought process quickly and succinctly, but it did not deter my client. They wanted it stuck right “there” and didn’t see why I was being so difficult. I tried to repeat my reasoning behind the existing design, which only served to frustrate them more.

Flustered, I sheepishly acquiesced and added what they wanted in the next revision, but the damage was done.

I hadn’t done a good job of educating.

Rather than poke and prod about my client’s request, I cast it off. I figured I’d already thought of that, and decided against it, so that was that. I did a poor job of understanding why they wanted what they were asking for, and a poor job of communicating why I’d done what I’d done.

Speak their language

Know what your audience values before you start talking about design. If you don’t know, ask them. We all come from different backgrounds and experiences, so learn about your audience before you start talking to them about the value of design.

Sales executives tend to value things like reducing costs, expanding engagements, and growing their business. Developers might value elegant solutions, performance improvements, and reusable patterns.

Design can help with all of these things. Obviously, if you’re trying to show someone the value of design, you have to first understand how it can bring value to their business. What results are they looking for? What can help set you apart from your competitors?

Be patient

This is especially true when dealing with seasoned counter-parts who aren’t familiar with any design process. Folks that have achieved great success without factoring in “design” into any past project need more time to see the value.

At the outset, asking for more budget and timeline to engage in “lengthy” discovery sessions, and bothering end-users with interviews or usability tests can seem like a whole lot of fancy-pants indulgences for artsy snowflakes.

Take what you can get, a little at a time, and be sure to communicate what gains were made through design. You simply might not be able to sell through a twelve-week design process right away, but maybe you can borrow six weeks of your discovery phase away from your BA’s and do some interviews.

If so, make sure you clearly communicate how that positively impacted your end-product throughout the design and build process. It easy. The reason you do those design exercises is to inform your design, so when you present (or create any design documentation), mention it. Things like:

“Since 88% percent of users we interviewed used iPhones, we decided to focus on the mobile component first and leveraged design patterns from similar iOS apps like Snapchat.”

It might take one successful project for someone to see the benefits of a design-first approach. You’ll compromise on your process, you’ll shave off timelines and cut budgets, but if you communicate the small wins along the way, you’ll build the trust you need to convert others into true believers.

Hey there! Hope you’ve enjoyed this so far… Have you had your own experiences in selling the value of design? What have you learned? Whether you agree or disagree with me, I’d love to hear form you.