The power of collaboration in Design
When Helen Keller said, “Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much”, it resonated with us all. We understand the power and advantage of numbers. We understand that in most cases, what someone can do by themselves, they can most definitely do better with more help.
Every designer is constantly learning on the job. We invest a lot of time in honing our skills by watching and reading what our fellow designers are doing across the world. We’re connected through Behance, Instagram, Dribbble and various other platforms that make us a community; a community that is growing exponentially every day.
When I started out my first project at a corporate in a team with 3 other designers, I FINALLY understood why recruiters want to check if the candidate they are interviewing is a team-player.
While working alone, every designer enjoys the freedom to “do their thing”.
There is an incredible amount of confidence and trust in what is designed when working alone. That is because we feel a sense of ownership in whatever we design. It is easier to justify something one has designed themselves since every pixel that they have put onto the screen has a definitive reason for it to be there.
The primary reason lone-wolf designers are not able to see anything wrong with their designs is because of the “Tunnel-Vision” phenomenon. When working for hours on a piece of design, it is very easy to lose sight of the larger picture. We get so fixated on making our designs pixel-perfect, perfecting the flow, and including all the needed fields on that page; we often are not able to see anything else except our own vision.
This is where collaboration helps. To escape tunnel-vision, the simplest action a designer can take is to approach their fellow designers. The most basic act of reaching out and letting others critique your design is a sign of a very mature designer.
Here’s what collaboration truly brings to the table —
1. Fresh Perspective
Since tunnel-vision leads to getting fixated on just one idea, designers should always feel the need to branch out. Collaborating with their peers and inviting them to critique their designs allows them to do just that.
Fresh eyes bring fresh perspective to the table. It is an established fact that every person has a different way of approaching a problem.
Collaboration enables designers to expand their horizons by simply hearing out other people’s ideas. Very often, discussing your designs with someone helps us see obvious options we must have missed. In lieu of formulating that ONE perfect solution, we skip the steps of running multiple iterations and thinking of different solutions. When another designer comes in with a blank slate, they are able to pitch drastically different ideas and create something that would not even remotely resemble our designs.
2. Leveraging strong suits
Every designer considers a particular skillset of theirs their strongest suit. It could be colourful white-boarding, creating those functionally perfect information architectures, designing pixel perfect wireframes or simply understanding client requirements perfectly. Collaborating with such versatile people allows a product or even a screen to be analysed from various angles and be designed to perfection.
A balanced team of designers working together allows us to not only perceive strengths of our peers, but also learn from them. The design community has always benefitted when its members have shared their knowledge rather than confining it to themselves. We learn more not just by watching tutorials and reading content online, but by looking at designs made by real people and understanding the thought process that goes behind creating those designs.
3. “I got your back”
Working together and collaborating involves building a safe space where ideas can be exchanged and accepted comfortably. Being able to work in a team means being able to rely on each other.
The biggest advantage of collaboration is that designers hardly ever have to go through design blocks. We have all been in situations where we are just NOT able to crack a design. In such situations, it really helps to have someone to bounce ideas off. Someone who already has a some context of what you’re working on would be able to help you through a road-block, or even take over from you.
Your team-mate can end up being your problem solver, and maybe even your biggest critic. Even before testing out your designs with the Product Owners or Users, it is a good practice to run it by someone to get in their feedback around it. When done properly and positively, team critiquing can work wonders for your designs.
We as designers need to leave behind the notion that we work better alone. There will definitely be times when the effort to on-board someone or justify your design decisions to them might seem tedious, but it is essential to remember that those kinds of discussions are what will bind us as a community.
To be able to eventually work and empathise directly with the users, we need to first strengthen our roots in our own community.
Thank you to my fellow team-mate Varun for unconsciously helping me write this :D
