Having a team with lots of different viewpoints is usually an asset. But there are times — specifically when it comes to settling a difference in opinion on a design — that those opinions may feel more burdensome than beneficial.
Every company has them. Whether it’s between two employees or twenty, if you have more than one person weighing in on a design, chances are not everyone is going to agree on the same direction right away.
Fortunately, design disputes don’t have to derail your project. With a little patience and planning, design reviews can not only help your team choose the best design for your customers, but save time as well. Here’s how:
Step 1: Decide Who’s Right
Part of the challenge is deciding who’s right. Everyone in the room may have a valid opinion — but everyone can’t be right. So who do you listen to?
No matter how many gray hairs or three-lettered titled people are in the room, there’s really one opinion that matters: your customer’s.
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“No matter how many C-titled people are in the room, there’s really one opinion that matters: your customer’s.”
And that’s the first step in settling an internal design dispute. Even if you’re not working within an organization that puts the customer at the center of everything they do, it’s hard to ignore the power the customer has over the bottom line. If customers don’t like what you’re giving them, your bottom line will suffer.
So before a product design discussion begins, preface it with the ultimate goal of winning over your customers — not the people in the room. But how do you do that, exactly?
A great way to remind everyone in the room who’s boss is by sharing feedback from your customers in their own voice. Chances are that anyone in customer-facing roles will have stories to share that illustrate how customers feel about your brand.
Start off every design discussion with a quick intro of a recent customer interaction to remind everyone why they’re really there — and whose opinion ultimately matters most. Personas are an easy way to refresh everyone’s memory on who you’re really speaking to — and why.
Next, you can pair those personas with the information you gather in steps 2 and 3, and you’ll be well on your way to having a productive design discussion.
Step 2: Decide What Matters
Once you’ve decided who matters, it’s important to identify what matters. A beautiful design is nice to look at, but if it doesn’t achieve your company’s objectives, it isn’t really helping you much.
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“A beautiful design is nice, but if it doesn’t achieve your company’s objectives, it isn’t really helping you much.”
The visual design of your product is undeniably important. But before you dive into how something should look, be sure to establish what that look should achieve. It’s less about what color a button might be, and more about how a change in button design will increase conversions.
If you know in your gut that users will be more drawn to a certain design, figure out how that design will help contribute to the overall goals of your team and the company.
You can achieve this by looking back at your company or team’s monthly, quarterly, or annual goals before every design review. Then decide how design decisions can help your team and the company achieve its goals.
For example, if one of your team’s goals is to increase total shopping cart purchases, you can frame design discussions around how they’ll help the team achieve that goal.
Once you’ve laid out clear guidelines on what goals are most important, it’ll be much easier to see how each design decision can move toward that goal.
Step 3: Show, Don’t Tell
When it’s time to make a final decision, don’t forget to listen to the most important opinion of all — the users’. It isn’t always easy to listen, let alone understand, an opinion of someone that’s not even in the room. Yet when it comes to creating a great user experience, it’s the folks not sitting at the table you should be listening to.
And, when despite all the best intentions, teams just can’t agree on a design, it’s helpful to bring user feedback into the mix to help cast the deciding vote. Regardless of the opinions at the table, watching real people interact with your product is the ultimate tie-breaker.
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“Regardless of all opinions, watching real people interact with your product is the ultimate tie-breaker.”
That means you’ll need to start conducting regular user tests before your team and stakeholders convene to discuss design decisions. As soon as you have a prototype — whether it’s on a napkin or a high-fidelity wireframe — it’s time to get that idea in front of your target audience.
Find out if the idea resonates with users. Observe how they interact with the product and take note of any interesting comments or actions that could support or invalidate a design direction.
Next, it’s time to gather the team together to watch the results.
Be sure to remind everyone about the goals of the tests; specifically what you’re trying to achieve and how that rolls up to larger business goals. Even the strongest advocate for a design will have a hard time justifying it if users struggle with it, or just don’t like it.
Letting users guide your team’s decisions also relieves you from having to be the ‘bad guy’.
User tests are also a great way to validate a choice later on. If there’s any doubt a chosen design direction will be effective, a few user tests can help answer those questions.
Don’t be Afraid to Dispute
While confronting differing opinions on a design may not be anyone’s idea of a fun afternoon, going through the process of working through conflicting ideas can be an empowering process. By hosting regular design reviews, your team will begin to feel more constructive and less combative, making critical feedback a lot easier to digest.
Encourage your teams to share feedback often—and don’t forget your users, too—and you’ll find it’s faster and easier to create products your customers love.
Do you have other ideas on how to resolve internal design disputes? Please share them in the comments below.
