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Why you shouldn’t be too eager to share your work
Designers often overshare when it’s not in their best interests to
When I had to narrow down two stellar design applicants to just one, I chose the one that said less.
I wasn’t alone: my manager and VP chose the one who exercised more restraint in the design exercise because, ironically, it made the person seem more senior.
This is one of those hidden lessons you need to learn as you advance to Senior Designer positions (and beyond).
Many times, the best approach is to show restraint, especially when communicating about visuals, to have the most significant impact.
Design is about deep problem-solving in an age of quick fixes
Designers are more akin to architects than artists nowadays.
We use a (mostly) standardized toolbox of design components, layouts, and other design system pieces for our work. In addition, most design work involves creating customized solutions for specific user problems and contexts, not new groundbreaking websites.
However, doing things the right way, especially in the age of AI, can become contentious.
That’s because gaining a deep understanding of user problems takes time. Whether conducting competitive research, conducting user testing or interviews, analyzing data, or using other techniques, these are fundamental parts of the design process that other team members don’t care about.
Instead, most Product teams (and executives) want you to deliver visual screens and prototypes as quickly as possible.
This is why companies like Figma market “Generate a design” based on AI prompts to Product Managers, and Product Managers gaslight you into working faster: they want fast visual results.
Most teams don’t realize that this results in “Fast + Cheap” Designs, which are a waste of time.
Learning to push back and show restraint with visuals gives you enough time to…
