Best Practices for Collaborating with Designers on Digital Projects

UX work doesn’t equal sitting quietly behind a screen. Strong communication and collaboration skills are essential to Good UX. These are the 10 best communication practices for your UX team: 1. Consistent standups Short, focused weekly (or daily) meetings close essential knowledge gaps and create alignment between team members. Frequent check-ins help everyone get aligned on tasks, address obstacles, and stay on top of overarching goals. 2. Clear documentation Create a source of truth for the entire team. This includes comprehensive documentation of UX knowledge: design decisions, user personas, journey maps, wireframes, prototypes, and design comps annotations. 3. Feedback sessions Consistent design reviews create a healthy feedback culture. When teams regularly practice giving and receiving feedback, they can receive it more openly from stakeholders. 4. Collaborative tools Streamline the collaborative process with tools like Figma, Miro, or Sketch for design, and Slack or Microsoft Teams for communication. Asynchronous spaces to create and communicate save invaluable time. 5. Communication channels Establish SOPs for when, where, and how to communicate – Slack for informal chats, emails for formal communication, Loom for feedback – whatever works best for your team. Keep everyone informed with status updates on projects and individual tasks. 6. Brainstorming sessions Bringing everyone’s zones of genius together is a powerful way to unlock creative ideas. Workshops dedicated to ideation, strategy, and execution are fundamental to strong UX teams. Most importantly, ensure everyone has a voice, regardless of their role. 7. Outline roles and responsibilities Using RACI or a responsibility-assignment charter eliminates overlap and confusion about tasks. Clear visuals assigning roles and responsibilities empower the team to execute efficiently. Better yet, they highlight points of collaboration in the process. 8. Foster transparency Have an open-door policy. Allow ideas, feedback, and suggestions from anyone in any role. Senior leaders should intentionally check in with the team during one-on-ones to discuss progress, challenges, and career development. 9. Continuous learning The UX field never stops evolving, and UXers should never stop learning. UX conferences, courses, and workshops should be a team commitment. Take the learning to the next level and discuss your takeaways during knowledge-sharing sessions. 10. Focus on the user No matter your UX role, a good user experience should be everyone’s end goal. Ongoing user research and testing should consistently be implemented and shared to maintain focus on real user needs and challenges. – What are the best communication practices (or challenges) for your UX team?

All I know about PMs working w designers: 1. You're not a designer. They are. 2. Involve them earlier than you think you need to. 3. Frquent, small meetings are much better than infrequent, larger reviews. 4. Always create multiple versions. Compare them side-by-side. 5. Build an environment that celebrates multiple drafts and throwaway work. Throwaway work is good. 6. Avoid biasing them with the way you believe the designs should be if there's room for exploration. 7. Embrace the fact that they likely think differently than you. That’s a good thing. 8. Treat them as a true partner. 9. Communicate your goals clearly. They appreciate understanding the desired outcome. 10. Avoid giving upfront design feedback after the first iteration. Designers prefer time to explore and iterate. Give them space to refine their designs. 11. Speak their language. Don't say: "Improve the conversion rate" but "How do you think we can get more people to sign up?" 12. Let them surprise you. 13. Communicate how you each operate and align on how to make decisions. 14. Collaborate on roadmap. Have an internal working version & public facing version. 15. Design experiments and review metrics together. 16. Don’t expect them to understand your idea – draw it. 17. If there’s something in a design you disagree with, frame it as a concern, not a criticism. #product #productmanagement #design #collaboration #technology

Today marks my 1 year anniversary at Activision Player Support 💙 ! Here are 3 lessons I learned as a UI Designer at Activision in year 1. (there's *so* many more.. but I'll keep this concise) 1. Clear communication and alignment: Establish a deep understanding of project requirements early on, assess project scope comprehensively, and have the courage to speak up with any questions (Don't be afraid to say you don't know something. You won't look less competent, and it's likely this will help others understand something more deeply too!). 2. Early cross-disciplinary involvement and collaboration: Identify who else will be touching this project. Stakeholders, content designers, developers, testers, data analysts, etc.. and integrate them as early as possible. Consider collaboration opportunities, and foster transparent communication. 3. Effective presentation: Present new designs with context of the user's story, the rest of the product, and with plenty of rationale. Meticulously prepare for stakeholder presentations. Practice the balancing act of genuinely listening to and receiving feedback, and also defending your design decisions - if you have the research and data to back it up. You may also find yourself supported if you've been collaborating with others on the team throughout the design process, as folks could feel invested and represented in the design too. Encourage everyone to use their voice, then listen closely and respectfully. Like I said, there's SO many more lessons I learned this year, these are just three pivotal lessons that greatly fueled my growth as a designer, and enriched project outcomes. Onward to year 2 💙 #uiuxdesign #designsuccess #uidesign #productdesign