Levels of knowledge and levels of designs, the growth path of a designer
Translating theory into real experiences and embracing other types of design are clear signs of your evolution as a designer.
The last two months were exciting; I had two remarkable talks with outstanding people about design experiences; as expected, I walked out of those conversations full of thoughts and reflections. First, I had the honor of being part of a beautiful project whose main idea is to discuss real-world design experiences to broaden knowledge in the UX community. Second, I had the chance to mentor a brilliant designer with exciting questions about transitioning from a designer role into a team management position. Both conversations reflect a high UX maturity and a heightened understanding of the next steps in a career.
Today, growing as a designer is a controlled and well-monitored process. Still, despite all the mentoring you receive, all the training time you can spend, and all the “transition job names and positions” you can adopt, there are two essential topics, in my opinion, that show a professional evolution.
The first is decoding theory to understand and practice in realistic contexts to solve real problems through reinterpretation (levels of knowledge). Second is the idea of not always imagining ourselves creating interfaces but understanding that we can build design experiences from broader points of view (levels of design).
Understanding levels of knowledge
First, UX is not rocket science.
This level should be the foundation of every UX knowledge. Even though it may be hard to explain to a non-designer what UX design means, the reality is this is no more than experience solutions to everyday experience problems. When we talk about concepts and terms in UX design (especially to people outside the design world), we need to remove that extra layer of complexity that we sometimes put on top of every speech inherited by a digital environment that tends to use fancy words. Using “sophisticated names” separates us from a basic user experience principle: being close to people and their problems. The reasoning behind this is simple; using terms no one understands creates a disconnect between challenges and solutions.
Imagine for a moment a scientist explaining to a child how to build a lego tower only based on math calculations; It would be frustrating to that child not to understand any single instruction to accomplish the goal.
Sometimes simple ideas or concepts told easily are more impactful than complex ones that need several explanations, understanding, and guidance.
The outcome:
Improving our speech will familiarize us with challenges, contexts, and people. Then, we can better understand how to provide a solution that helps people use an artifact or a system. Then, maybe the next time we need to explain what we do to a non-designer group, it will be a different conversation full of shared understanding and empathy.
Design frameworks and artifacts are guidelines, not real life.
We deal with real people’s problems (most of the time), and often a well-structured framework or process will not bring a complete solution because it bases its knowledge on abstract situations (of course, you can disagree with me on this). This gap between theory and real-life matters because processes or artifacts will not always cover nuances of contexts, personalities, decisions, and possible implications that a user problem may have.
If we rely only on theory, we will miss a considerable part of the solution placed on experience. Therefore, we must always stay creative and not close the door to new ideas and solutions. Evolving in this knowledge level means we can create our understanding and apply it as an original approach to a real problem (this can be a decisive advantage when aspiring to higher positions).
Please do not misunderstand me; design frameworks and artifacts are highly effective, and you can find many answers and experience solutions by using them. However, the issue I see here is to stay only on the theoretical side, assuming that all the problems we deal with are the exact representation of some organized steps and not being open to changing how we reframe issues. Thus, we will never see new points of view and disruptive solutions.
The outcome:
Knowing the perfect balance between WHAT we know, and HOW we can use and adapt this knowledge in real problems and contexts, we can evolve our understanding of challenges, creating unique solutions. So don’t let some “guidelines” kill your creativity and the potential you can see answers around you.
Approaching people only on the theoretical side loses the whole human part.
When we need to find the next UX talent for our team, we usually (at least in my previous experiences) tend to drive interviews and measure skills based on how much the candidate knows about design theory. Big mistake.
After knowing the background (searching for big academy names), we inquired a little about the candidate solving criteria and character, which are, in the end, the most relevant skills an aspiring designer can provide to your team.
The learning behind this imbalanced way of approaching people is that sometimes, a well-prepared person does not have the right qualities to deal with real issues such as complex stakeholders, stating an argument in front of an audience, or simply working as an active team member.
“Simply hiring people with a solid resume or great work ethic does not guarantee success.” — Simon Sinek
Sometimes, LinkedIn profiles show more than what a person is. So my invitation here is to dig further into the person, know how the candidate faces challenges, get feedback, solve what is not already structured, and finally, identify if you want a team member or an isolated expert without any sense of team-working. Knowledge will come eventually, but the human side will remain.
I recommend looking at this Ted talk about the importance of knowledge and experiences in candidates by Regina Hartley. Also, here’s an interesting article that enlights five questions to avoid missing the substance of candidates in a job interview.
The outcome:
At this level, the value behind real experiences means a lot. Sometimes we need to survive difficulties, whether personal or professional. In that survival mode, we become creative to get through. Do not underestimate those skills; in the design world, we always survive challenges, so we need to stay creative, and sometimes, the theory playbook is a good advisor but is not enough.
Understanding levels of design
To evolve as a designer, we need to embrace change (depending on what we want in our career); to do that, we must transcend the way we see design problems and other issues.
For designers, sometimes it is hard to pivot from crafting interfaces to developing roadmaps, executive duties, or even caring for people; sadly, this transition is not easy or smooth and often can be frustrating. Julie Zhuo exposes well all the challenges a new manager faces in her book: The making of a manager.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this article, I had a fantastic talk with a designer that struggled with the transition of crafting into an executive role where there is no more “design” as we know. Her reasons were legit (prevalent among designers); she was scared of quitting what she liked the most: designing. I remember I was there once, but I could embrace change when I realized that even in executive positions, you never quit design; instead, you start designing from a new perspective to solve new problems.
In my opinion, there are two levels of design:
Artifacts and solutions
This level is pretty much what we started doing early in our careers. We translated information, requests, instructions, and experiences through design into an interface or user flow. Of course, there are a significant variety of design profiles, and not everyone does interfaces. Still, in the early stages, a designer has to follow a roadmap and create value from the guidance of a superior.
At this level, designers learn and perfect deliverables on time. In addition, there’s a lot of creativity, a strong connection, and “know-how” in using design tools. Solving problems and graphing them into deliverables is delightful, especially when you see that your idea goes live or positively impacts a project or company.
Design challenges at this stage are part of a given workflow or a given request from your company, so your responsibility, plain and simple, is to deliver. Of course, there are several ceremonies where a designer can expose ideas and be part of the innovation process, but that does not exclude the idea of depending on a leader guide that marks the north of the team.
Relationships and strategy.
The other level of design happens when you transcend from a requested deliverable into a more abstract situation — for example, relationships and strategies.
How is design at this level? If we focus on tools, I would say it may be terrible depending on what you need; slides and tables are not quite the most fun things to use, but now we have tons of software that can work for design or planning in a more friendly way, so is not a big deal.
Relationships:
Here’s where a good leader shows the relevance of this position to construct a proper work environment. Creating or “designing” healthy connections and communications with stakeholders, peers, or teammates will determine how enjoyable and effective the work can be for the whole.
How do we design these relations? Good communication is everything, from the inside out (design to others); transparency and tracking on planning or decisions will leave no space for doubts. At this level, in my opinion, you must have at least:
- Clearance of a roadmap to stay aligned with stakeholders.
- Organized tracking of the career path of your team.
- High definitions of company workflows and critical actors.
- High descriptions of design workflows.
- Stakeholder maps (this is vital)
Strategies:
Once you own a proper work environment full of good communications, the next thing is to move into strategies, which means moving towards a desirable execution. This level of design is all about moving your pieces to achieve a goal. As a leader, one of your responsibilities is to make moves to ensure the best outcome based on your resources.
How do we design strategies? Well, I think there is no global formula to do that, but since our mission is to lead the team, I recommend the following actions:
- Be aware of the context: acknowledge the constraints and opportunities you may have at the company.
- Be clear with expectations about your role and your team.
- Identify your team’s potential, allowing you to use them the best way possible.
- Be honest with your team; there is no space for white lies and misunderstandings in complex projects.
- Identify the critical actors in projects, or at least the people who can provide some answers.
- Anticipate others; the best defense is to attack. But, if possible, taking advantage of some early understanding will give you ownership of topics.
A final thought:
Companies nowadays have detailed processes for measuring the progression and seniority of their collaborators; This is a good thing because we can track how people evolve into the next position step by step. However, it does not depend only on a metric but on criteria of assimilating what we know or how we move to create excellent outcomes.
Moving to the next level is more person based than metric-based. In the end, like several linked-in profiles, you can have superior numbers, but your day-by-day experience will determine whether you are average or ready to evolve.
#ShortStoriesOfMyLifeAsDesigner
To write this article, I want to credit all the fantastic information sources and other authors who have had the exact reflection as me, all from another exciting perspective.
In the end, and luckily for us, the evolution of a designer is a broad topic that will never end :)
- Julia Fawal: Five interview questions that will help you hire better people
- Regina Hartley: Why the best hire might not have the perfect resume
- Butterhalfsix: The evolution of design
- Matt Kearney: The evolution of a designer
- Linn Vizard: Technology and the Evolution of the Designer’s Role
- Debobrata Debnath: The evolution of designers
