Written by Liting
2022 Cohort
I’ve found that the part of the problem that can often occur during teamwork isn’t the quality of the design; it’s the communication. For example, every time the designer changes the structure, the design review meeting is not held on time, which leads to a deflection of the team members’ understanding of the product. Ideas can differ immensely between the designer and the developer.
So, how can we avoid that situation in advance? From my personal experience, I think the following methods are very useful when designers have team communication problems.
Clearer design documentation
In the product design process, designers often need to become familiar with the product documents and conduct sufficient research before starting the design. But these research documents are generally numerous and scattered, so we need a clear, interactive record to facilitate other team members’ written communication. Everyone involved should get to know the overall thinking and process of our product design. In my opinion, a complete interactive document often includes the following:
- Title and version number;
- Change Log and meeting times;
- Basic product introduction and design background – Usually chosen from PRD;
- Product Architecture and User Flowchart;
- Interaction Flow Planning, Content Layout, Interaction, and Feedback (In-Interface);
- Visual Script and Style Guide.
Regular critique meeting
Other than that, the critique meeting is a crucial way to improve the efficiency of cooperation. Different critique meetings will contribute to the decision-making in different phases.
The small design critique meeting is the most common. It often appears in the initial design draft stage. Designers can schedule a small gathering and call members from other functions – such as product managers, developers, etc., to collect design feedback.
Online communication feedback often follows the small Critique meeting, sends the Change Log summary to the project group, and sends the latest version of the interactive document. This way, new and uninformed team members can learn about your latest design ideas by viewing the documentation and communicating with you.
In large-scale design critique meeting, which generally occurs when there are some directional changes in the design, the participants not only include all team members (dev, PM, designer, researcher) but also sometimes clients and leaders participate; they will provide some product business strategies support.
Which one is the most important for you?