Things I started doing differently as a senior product designer
I started doing a few things differently (or new things altogether) as I became more experienced as a designer. Here are some of the notable ones.
Improve how I work with developers
Collaboration and handoff are as important as the designs you create. At the end of the day, the customers see the product that is built in production, not your Figma files. So it’s vital that your developers have everything they need to implement your design perfectly.
We have a practice of addressing this by creating prototypes and using tools like Zeplin or even using annotations in our designs. But have you thought of everything?
There are a couple of things I realized are still missing. I still got questions from my developers because there were gaps in the user flow that I overlooked. And making the product responsive is still not a walk in the park. So, I realized I needed to improve a couple of things.
- Don’t leave anything to assumption
- Use auto-layout to design like a developer
Don’t leave anything to assumption
A few things you can easily overlook when designing a product are the different states for a page or element. You create the main user flows. But there can still be things you’re leaving for the developer to assume.
A couple of things that happened in my experience are empty states and how the UI should change when the amount of data increases beyond the page.
It’s easy for us to imagine the screens with content. But what happens when there is none of it? What should it look like the first time you get there or when you delete everything from the screen?
Even then, what should happen when the content fills up the page? Should you add a scroll bar? Or a pagination experience where the rest of the data should be taken to a new page?
Think about all the possible “states” of a screen. Good communication with your developers will help you improve on this. Now, I try to think of all “states” before I mark something as “ready for dev”.
Use auto-layout to design like a developer
This brings us to the next point. Design like a developer.
Something I seldom used when I started was auto-layout. I thought it was just a feature for other designers on the team (which is still not a reason) and also kept on pushing back on learning it.
But little did I know how closely Figma’s auto-layout is connected to CSS flexbox. Things like “display: flex”, flex-direction, and fill container all behave exactly how it does with CSS flexbox.
This means, that when you design with proper auto-layout principles, your developers can get the exact properties from your design itself. I would also try to name the layers of auto-layout elements so that the devs can easily identify elements and maybe even use them as class names.
Wear multiple hats
We learn more about our craft as well as the holistic product process as well gain experience working on multiple projects. As time went by, I was able to identify my strengths and weaknesses.
At first, it might look daunting to give your opinion on something to the team, but once you realize how it has a positive effect on the work, you’re encouraged to do it more often.
Working at multiple startups/scaleups gave me experience in how to improve things that are beyond the daily UI/UX and product tasks. A few things I realized I could have an input on were the design process, building company culture, and design ops.
In the latest company I worked on, I was the solo designer on a very early-stage startup. I was lucky enough to work with a team that was open to new ideas.
I had my input in incorporating how we work with tools like Figma and Linear, coming up with a set of company values for the team, and basically the go-to “design guy” at the company.
More effort on detailed UI
When I started my career, I began in a more research-focused role as a UX designer. We also had a dedicated UI designer and a motion designer as well. I felt like the research side was my strength.
After working for over 2 years in that role, I moved on to more general roles. As a UI/UX designer and product designer later on. The new roles had responsibilities in both UI and UX.
Most of my focus was still on the research side and I felt like my UIs weren’t getting the love it deserves. I invested a little more in learning that.
Now, I dedicate more time to creating more “advanced” UIs. This means a little more details here and there. The different use of colors to add depth to the design, buttons with subtle gradients, and I want to start incorporating subtle textures to UIs as well to add a more skeuomorphic look to them.
This is a good segue to my next point…
Use different fonts
I will admit that I rarely go out of my comfort zone with my fonts in designs. It's almost always Inter or a native font like SF Pro.
But to add more character to a design, using more advanced fonts can be really handy. That is why I started experimenting with different fonts for my projects. This might sound trivial but it definitely sets your designs apart from more basic ones.
I’m currently redesigning my portfolio with Bricolage Grotesque. And using IBM Plex Sans for a side project I’m working on.
Reduce things as much as possible
Finally, I want to touch on how I’ve added an extra step of checking my designs to see how much I can remove. One thing you will notice as you gain more experience designing UIs is the importance of reducing the cognitive load of a user.
Put yourself in the user’s shoes and think about what their main goal is on that page. Is there anything unrelated that would get in their way? Are there any inconsistencies in the information architecture?
Remixing pages to reduce as many things as possible has become a main step of designing for me. This can be reducing the lines in your copy or removing entire elements itself. I will probably try to make a post with some examples soon :)
Conclusion
In conclusion, it’s important to realize what your strengths and weaknesses are as you grow in your career. Reflect on both your design and soft skills, do you think things have changed for the better? If not, it’s time to put some time and effort into identifying where you can improve and start working on them right away!
Further reads:
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