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We can’t do that
Design negotiation techniques when your team says no.
It’s one of those days where everything went right. The design problems that had been plaguing you for days or weeks suddenly fell away as you found the right solutions. Everything snapped into place like a hand-crafted jigsaw puzzle.
You got it. Now you just have to sell it.
This is where other problems, new problems, typically come to light. Somewhere in the middle of your design presentation, someone says those four words you are all too familiar with — we can’t do that. It might be a developer or someone on the business side or, even worse, a stakeholder.
Almost any designer can recognize this scenario and relate their own version. The meeting and the conversation get away from you and you find yourself embroiled in a lengthy debate. We’ve all been there and we’ve all tried to get from “no” to “yes” in these conversations.
I used to dread the design presentation that took this direction. I would lose sleep at night. At work, I would lament changes that were beyond my control, telling my co-workers we were ruining the product. But if you stay in this profession long enough, you’ll have to find methods to cope with these scenarios.
