Stop complaining about it; redesign it
What if you started using your design skills to redesign the things that make you unhappy?
In our State of UX report we wrote about how the architectural thinking UX Designers develop over the course of their careers can be used in ways that go beyond creating sitemaps or running card-sorting exercises.
Design is a process that can be applied to anything, including our work environment. Why are you still complaining about bad meetings, instead of redesigning them? — The State of UX in 2018
Well, let’s start from the source of all that discontent.
I honestly don’t know if this is something unique to our industry, or simply a generational truth — but designers complain a lot.
Over the course of my career, I have heard people complain about their bosses, the lack of vision of their company’s leadership, the lack of process, their co-workers, tools, slow computers, and even the types of snacks (provided for free) by the company they work for.
Maybe it’s because designers have been trained to spot things that are not working.
Still, it strikes me as really odd.
First, because… if things are as bad as you are describing, what the heck are you still doing at that company, then?
Second, because…
Why do you put yourself down when you hear things like these?
- There’s no process in this company.
- These meetings are useless.
- This workflow isn’t effective.
But feel compelled to act when you hear things like these?
- This screen is missing a clear call-to-action.
- These cards on the homepage are unhelpful.
- This form isn’t converting.
Aren’t you a designer? Isn’t design the act of doing, planning or creating something with a specific purpose or intention of making it better?
What if we applied the same systematic thinking we use to define a product’s architecture to our company’s org chart?
What if we applied user-centered design principles to the meetings we run everyday?
What if we applied our user research abilities to understand what other teams in our company want and need?
What if we applied the same linear thinking we use to define user flows, to help improve our own workflow?
In the process of adapting to the behaviors of a predominantly millennial workforce, companies have become much more open to listening to feedback from employees — and to completely reimagining their process in some cases. You might not be the person responsible for making final business decisions, but as a designer you do have the power to create and propose solutions that will solve the problems you are bringing up — and to present them to the people who can make those decisions. In fact, companies expect employees to speak up and help design, collaboratively, their own process.
So, the next time you complain about something to someone more senior than you and you don’t bring along a solution for that problem, think about this: are you simply saying you’re not capable of designing it in a better way?
