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Sadly it's not only designers but sometimes the whole product org who is biased… I lost on a potential design contract earlier this year because the company wan

by Adrig 3y ago

Sadly it's not only designers but sometimes the whole product org who is biased… I lost on a potential design contract earlier this year because the company wanted a paid case study. 3 hours to improve their onboarding and customer activation. I showed an outline of the direction I thought was best, highlighted the core concepts to watch for, and opened to further tests we could do to achieve the target KPI. They told me my concepts were not “bold enough” and I wasn't defending it as hard as they'd like. It seems that to them, a designer should be confident enough to impose his vision after 3h of work on one of the most important flows of a B2B app. No hard feeling against them, I was probably not a good fit. But it's not the first time people expect me to come in and “do the design thing” like it's dark magic.

ethbr1 3y ago
There's an inherent issue with being both a paying patron and lay judge. If I want greatness, I probably shouldn't hire an expert and then say "Eh, I don't like it"... but you constantly see that dynamic in management and creative consulting. Argue on the merits and goals, sure! But why substitute a VP's taste for an expert they're paying?! If someone needs an ego fluff, there are cheaper ways.
freedomben 3y ago
Yes thank you, great point. I've definitely seen the organizational leadership push designers to be more imposing, and that's a big problem. I think that a lot of VPs struggle to justify the cost (salary) of designers because it can be difficult to identify the contributions/value when you aren't intimately involved in the process. Because of this they want to see someone who they think will really take the reins and make the investment worth it. This is IMHO a big mistake, but it's the best explanation I can think of to explain what I've seen in the past. I think there's also sometimes an idea that engineers and designers are inherently in conflict and engineers will ruin things if not kept in check and dominated by a strongly opinionated designer. I think this largely stems from Apple and the Jobs/Ive era, but regardless, in most software I've been a part of this is a mistake. That sort of domination/conflict-based "teamwork" does not lead to the results they think it does.

by Adrig 3y ago

ethbr1 3y ago

There's an inherent issue with being both a paying patron and lay judge. If I want greatness, I probably shouldn't hire an expert and then say "Eh, I don't like it"... but you constantly see that dynamic in management and creative consulting. Argue on the merits and goals, sure! But why substitute a VP's taste for an expert they're paying?! If someone needs an ego fluff, there are cheaper ways.

freedomben 3y ago

Yes thank you, great point. I've definitely seen the organizational leadership push designers to be more imposing, and that's a big problem. I think that a lot of VPs struggle to justify the cost (salary) of designers because it can be difficult to identify the contributions/value when you aren't intimately involved in the process. Because of this they want to see someone who they think will really take the reins and make the investment worth it. This is IMHO a big mistake, but it's the best explanation I can think of to explain what I've seen in the past. I think there's also sometimes an idea that engineers and designers are inherently in conflict and engineers will ruin things if not kept in check and dominated by a strongly opinionated designer. I think this largely stems from Apple and the Jobs/Ive era, but regardless, in most software I've been a part of this is a mistake. That sort of domination/conflict-based "teamwork" does not lead to the results they think it does.