Compromise and Survival
Sometimes compromising is key to survival.
Masada is a desolate place in eastern Israel, in view of the Dead Sea. Once a palace it stands today as a reminder of the brutal realities of war and how belief can play into it. The Jewish rebels who stood against Rome's rule of their land made their last stand here, committing suicide before being taken as slaves. Rome was uncompromising in the way it punished those who stood against it. The rebels were uncompromising in their faith and their belief that the Jewish homeland should be free.
Design starts with an idea, a vision, for how something can look or behave. We work it into a form we think is good enough to show to our team or client. Fairly often other members of the team have suggestions or criticism. Even more often the client has requests and critiques. It can be tricky navigating this world where something that is intrinsically an expression of yourself is picked apart and changed. When do we fight for our ideas? Better yet, HOW do we fight for our ideas? The method we use matters a great deal. When do we compromise? Do we get a specific benefit from compromising? These are all really important questions, and the more you understand these subjects the better you'll do professionally. Sometimes compromising is key to survival. Let's dive in.
If you argue about non-essential things you sound petty and emotional
Picking Your Battles
On one side of the scale we have our vision. Now, let's be honest: some of our design is probably based off industry standards, data, or some other rational base. SOME of our ideas, however, are likely not integral to the function of the design at all. They're just some things we liked and thought looked good. Maybe it was something we spent a little extra time crafting, putting in the touches that we designers appreciate. Quite often this will be the type of thing either ignored by the client or the thing they ask you to change or remove. It happens all the time. Is it worth fighting over, just because you like it, or because you put time into it? No, it's really not. You may get your feelings tweaked, but realize that bothering you isn't the reason the client is doing what they're doing. They just want a product that realizes THEIR vision, which is generally based on their specific business needs. There are hills to die on, and this isn't one. As a side note, this is why UX Designers are important and why doing low fidelity wireframes is important: you separate the design discussion from the feature discussion to some degree. I'll talk more about how visual design and UX interact and affect each other in a future article.
If you are asked to change something that is integral to the end product's function, you can explain why you designed it that way, provide examples where it's done in a similar way in other products or on other websites, and generally try sound persuasive and knowledgeable. If you argue about non-essential things you sound petty and emotional, and eventually no one listen to you even when you're making a data-driven argument later on. The good thing about letting go of irrelevant niceties in your design is that when you do stand firm on something and give evidence for it, clients and team members will generally back down happily. Most of the time they just hadn't thought about it from that perspective before. If you get defensive or seem upset it creates a climate of conflict, which ultimately means you won't be happy and fewer of your design decisions will be respected. The specific benefit of compromising on non-essential design elements is, then, that you add to your firepower when you stick to your guns on other issues. Remember, the design isn't the goal; the product performing it's function in a manner that fulfills the user's needs is the goal.
Remember, the design isn't the goal
Building Good Will
When giving up on a certain point, particularly if it's a functional design element, you have to make it obvious that you're letting it go gracefully, but not necessary quietly. If you fold too quickly or without explaining why you designed it that way, you get no benefit. Don't make it obvious you're drawing attention to it, but just say, for example, "I can see your viewpoint, let's go with your idea on this one." Calm, positive; not joyous, but not angry or sad or emo either. They'll feel good and instantly have positive sentiment toward you. Then when you get to something important and lay out your facts and rationale, they're much more likely to let you have your way. It's not foolproof, but we're looking for averages over time. It also helps if you've taken the time to build personal relationships with the others by socialization and by doing small tasks to help them in their work, always with a smile and always speedily so they feel that you're making them a priority. They'll then know you're not fighting with them out of spite.
Users may not care about the feature, but perhaps it's important that the client
Addressing Real Differences
So what happens when you really are in conflict with a client on something important. Let's say they really want something front and center, but your data shows that users don't care about that and are digging to get to something else? Or they spent a lot of money on a feature but it's unused. There are a few things to consider here.
First, in the end it's the client's product. As such they may have goals that don't align with our goals as designers. Users may not care about the feature, but perhaps it's important that the client make it highly visible for some other reason. It may be part of a coming marketing campaign, or perhaps it's relevant to the parent organization. At Florida Hospital College (now ADU.edu) we often had limits or requirements that came from Florida Hospital or Adventist Health. In government there are White House initiatives that are going to take a front row seat despite the users of your particular agency or institution not caring about them. Yet another reason that listening is more important than talking.
The second thing to consider is whether you're looking at it too narrowly. It's easy to get stuck into certain design patterns that we know work well. Ironically, although we are the creatives (*gag*) we sometimes stop being creative and fail to see other ways of making a feature work because we're only seeing it in the context of our larger design. Other people may not be considering the rest of the design and present highly viable alternative ideas for the feature. You have to ask yourself if this is something you have evidence for or if it's just the result of other things that may or may not be fluid.
Third, are you being emotionally reactive and defensive? If you realize you are being this way you need to stop, take a breath, and assess the facts. Even in the face of the worst design suggestions you've ever seen you have to take the time to explain why things aren't done that way in calm and serious language. Condescending feelings are your enemy because they lead to condescending words. At times clients will still go with the terrible idea. You're a professional, suck it up.
Fourth, ALWAYS play the long game. If you can't persuade your client of something right now, it's ok. Collect analytics over months or years. If you're right, they'll see that in the data eventually. Since you didn't force the issue too harshly up front they won't be as resistant once the numbers are in. If you're wrong then it's best you didn't throw a fit originally anyway. I keep a list of items that I want to revisit in X number of months, or on the next design cycle go-'round. I may not bring them up directly, but I make sure they're addressed.
Lastly, always remember that it's never you against the client. It's always you and the client combining your knowledge to help the user. Building mutual respect requires not just good design skills and understanding the users, it requires a desire to understand what the other influencers and stakeholders do, know, and care about. As you educate yourself in these areas you'll grow to respect them more and more. They'll grow to appreciate your expertise more and more. Although you'll always have disagreements, understanding the reason for them will help them be resolved based on meeting the real concerns and understandings of each person.
ALWAYS play the long game
In Conclusion
I've gone on long enough, but this is an extremely important subject if you want to have a really successful career that is fun and not a headache for you and your coworkers. Let's finish with some good/bad ways to phrase things:
Bad: "Users don't care about that feature, let's scrap it"
Why It's Bad: You're not showing empathy to the other person. If they didn't care about it you wouldn't be having the discussion, so your job is to understand why it matters to them.
Good Alternative: "So our data so far shows that users aren't utilizing that feature. It's in a prime spot on the page, so they're seeing it. We can do two things: we can run some user testing to see why users aren't accessing it. This might show that they really aren't interested, or it might reveal some other problem with the text, visual design, or a technical problem. Or we could just change the visuals and text copy and see if we get an increase. What do you think?"
Why It's Better: The second one skips through the why and any actual rejection of the idea (and the possibility of the person taking that rejection personally), instead jumping directly into exploring the difficulties of the lack of use. It then offers a couple of alternative ways to approach the issue, letting the client feel ownership while still guiding the process. In this way you don't lose control of the discussion but you don't run roughshod either.
Bad: "You pay me to be the designer, I'm saying this one looks good. Seriously, it's a better design!"
Why It's Bad: Don't have a Bio-Battle. If you reference your age, experience, or other personal attribute then you've made an arrogant and ugly ass of yourself. You've provided no evidence.
Good Alternative: "In painting they have what are called the "rules of composition." They influence where a viewer's eyes will fall on the painting, where the points of interest are. We try to use some of these in visual design as well. So for this layout we've organized the pieces using the compositional rules of size, color saturation, detail and softness, and line flow." Then explain how they are used.
Why It's Better: You've abstracted the argument to where it's not about this particular design as much as it's about universal visual theory. Not only are you now criticizing the other person, you're actually educating them, helping them see differently, and also positioning them such that if they argue further they're not just arguing against you, they're arguing against Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael. It will also help them hone in on what it is they don't like about it, which in the end is the information you need to improve the design to appeal to more people.
Bad: "I spent 36 hours on that widget, you just want to scrap it?"
Why It's Bad: First, it's the client's money. If they paid you to develop it but don't want to use it that's their business. You can still use it in your portfolio of course, plus what you learned from developing it. Second, did the client actually want you to spend that much time developing that item? Sometimes we designers get all wrapped up in something we're excited about to the detriment of other aspects of a project. Is it your fault you spent so much time and so much of their money? They might point this out to you in the form of a pink slip if you push it.
Good Alternative: "We already have the widget, why don't you let me do some limited user testing and see if it's something users will actually enjoy? Sometimes they surprise you how they use your product and the features that are popular and unpopular. If analytics don't show any traction in X months we'll more past it."
Why It's Better: It reminds them of the money invested but doesn't harp on how much work YOU put into it. It's not about you, it's about the users and being prudent with the company's money and resources. It is also just a better path forward than scrapping it entirely.
In a good compromise everyone wins.