For example, designers make fewer design decisions for products with a design system. The design system’s style guide, design language, and other guidelines reduce decision-making so designers can focus on solving user needs. It’s usually enough to simply state with confidence what the data shows without the need for further discussion: My favorite thing about this book was that it had a lot of real life examples. I also loved the way that the articulation process was broken down in detailed stages. Tom clearly has a natural gift for articulating design decisions that he has honed through years of experience. The chapter for non-designers was an added bonus. Although we would like to think that we designers can create anything under the sun, the reality is that we’re limited by technology. What’s available to us will naturally force us to make design decisions that need to be explained to our stakeholders. Often, these constraints cannot be foreseen when creating the original designs, and it is only during implementation that we have to make these adjustments. Our stakeholders had certain expectations, but when it came time to make it happen, we realized that we had to make some sacrifices. Design is not a democracy, but it's not a dictatorship either. It's a collaboration between the designer, the stakeholders, and the users." - Tom Greever

Starting with the "why" before delving into the "what" and "how" ensures that you begin from the base, which is the root problem. When you clearly articulate the problems that you are seeking to solve, you build context around why certain design decisions were taken. This helps clients understand the reasoning behind your choices and how it aligns with their business goals. It establishes trust and credibility and paves way for a successful partnership. 2. Use simple language UX artifacts that describe users’ stories are excellent for getting stakeholders to understand problems and empathize. User personas help humanize users, while journey maps and storyboards illustrate their challenges. This book sits at the intersection of the growing UX design industry and the digital product business, where designers transitioning from making pretty pictures to creating great user experiences meet with developers, managers, and executives whose agenda and perspective may, at times, be at odds. The growth of the UX designer has changed our role in so many ways, none more so than the need to explain ourselves to other people who don’t share our experience in design. Design Is Subjective...Sort ofThat’s where we find ourselves today. In a meeting with people who have no idea how to do our jobs, yet consistently find it their place to tell us how to do it. It’s enough to drive any designer insane. Digital Experiences Are Real Life You must decide what kinds of data will be most relevant to your stakeholders and optimize your designs to improve those metrics. Using data to support your decisions is very convincing, as long as you’ve got an airtight connection and are making the right assumptions. “REVEALED IN USER TESTING” Heatmaps: inform design teams how users interact with user interfaces and content. For example, do most users use the primary CTA or look for another option in the navigation menu?

It’s actually pretty rare that you’ll need to provide the original research as proof unless, of course, people disagree. Most of the time stakeholders take these kinds of statements at face value and trust you with the rest. Much like using analytics, this can be a dangerous power because if you’re prone to overstate or misremember the data, you will still make bad decisions. For that reason, I don’t recommend quoting another study without having the reference available. Sometimes, what you remember about a study and what the actual learning was is heavily influenced by your own perspective. It’s easy to bend it to your advantage, so be careful.Why is this skill so important? Here are just a few reasons: It helps to build consensus and alignment within a team.

Of these three categories, user research is the most critical for decision-making. Designers must pinpoint a specific problem, understand why it’s happening, and design a solution for that user persona. You’re wrong,” she said. “None of that really matters. The most important thing you could ask me...the very first thing you should always ask is, ‘What are we trying to communicate?’”Merge components include properties and interactivity defined by the design system, so designers can spend more time building user interfaces to solve user problems rather than making component-level decisions. The truth is, all design is subjective. What one person likes, another person hates. What seems obvious to me might not be obvious to you. What works in one context could fail miserably in another. This is why design is such a difficult thing to talk about, especially with people who aren’t designers. There is little common understanding of what design is or should be.