Why Designing UX is Better Than Designing Graphics? It’s All About The Process
by Ewa, UX Designer | 2 mins read
Did you ever come across complaints about Graphic Designers? I did. I heard that it’s hard to communicate with them. That once you tell them what you need they disappear for weeks.
I design User Experience (UX) and Information Architecture (AI) and I’ve never had problems working together with our clients. I also work with Graphic Designers and I experienced the what-the-hell-is-he-doing problem on my own. I want to share my way of coping with clients hoping it’ll make our cooperation better!
The Graphic Design Way
A Designer collects ideas and needs from Client and than … he sits in his dark mistic kingdom (or super white designy openspace) and works on the project. There’s one week. There’s a second one. Depending on the size of the project there as well may be a third one. During that time Client has no idea what the Designer is doing. Finally he presents his work to the Client and… his world falls apart. Client is not satisfied, it’s not what he imagined. Now the Designer is offended and I believe the Client is super happy that he’ll see second version in another 2-3 weeks…
The UX Way
At the beginning everything is the same - I meet with a Client, collect ideas and needs. But then… it usually takes me 2-3 days to prepare first draft version of lo-fi mockup. Then I contact the client and we work TOGETHER on the draft.
With one of our clients I organized couple of 3 hours sessions, where together with polish representatives we held video calls with their superiors abroad. We sat together and worked on prototype LIVE, moving boxes, buttons, reorganizing app’s interface so that all necessary elements were in the right places. If there was something I had to rethink harder (e.g. navigation) we just wrote that down and I worked on it after the meeting.
Many of our clients I never met in person as they are from Singapore, Thailand, United States and Norway. We work remotely and this kind of work requires good communication skills and tools. This is why I use UXPin to prepare prototypes and exchange comments. There’s this great collaboration mode which allows you to write comments and pin them to specific element of interface. This way we don’t have to exchange tons of e-mails where we try to understand which comment corresponds to which element. Much simple. Many clear.
Combining those two approaches - working LIVE with Client and giving him tool to easily comment my design creates a win-win situation. Client is IN the process so he knows what is happening and feels he has control over the project. On the other hand I get quick feedback and don’t waste time on going down the wrong design road.
What type of approach do you prefer? :)
ux design