Pair Design: Two designer at one problem
A new collaboration technique for designers
Screenshare Pairing is the most traditional and well known type of pairing. This technique, borrowed from pair programming, is a two-person activity to work through hard problems, faster, less errors, and more creativity.
- Two displays, Two mice, two keyboards, but one computer
- Alternating driver and navigator roles: The Driver controlling the mouse and keyboard and the navigator actively asks questions while considering the big picture
- Two designers or two programmers are the most known kinds of pairing. But a PM and a designer or a developer and a designer together is sometimes called cross-functional pairing
Faster and better work
- Contextual idea generation and contextual feedback from someone equally invested in the problem
- Focus is a natural result since Facebook, Slack, and Email siren songs are are gone. Coworkers are also less likely to interrupt you if you’re in a conversation
- Energy levels stay higher since pairs can help each other remind to take breaks when productivity drops
- Share the wins and losses during the work
Roles for pairs
In pair designing each “pair” takes on a role as the driver or navigator. These roles can and should change for true pairing, but before starting, make it explicit clear who is taking on which role and when they are changing.
Driver
The driver controls the mouse and keyboard. They are doing the physical making.
Navigator
The navigator observes the work, ask inquisitive questions and takes on the responsibility of thinking about the user, looking for edge cases, and investigating the design decisions.
“Aren’t we doubling resources?”
Remember the last feature you were working on. It’s likely you spent a couple of hours or days on it then shared it with someone on your team to get a second opinion. But then you found out you somehow, despite all your brilliance, overlooked some detail, or a now obvious way to simplify the feature. Imagine having had that insight within 20–30 minutes of working on the problem. Days and hours down the drain.
Or worse, imagine the feature goes live and it takes weeks, if not months, to realize an oversight. We never get it right the first time and this helps the second, third, and fourth solutions arrive a lot faster. If someone on your team expects perfection on the first go, something about your job needs to change.
Do people really pair?
I paired at Pivotal Labs with clients and other Pivotal designers. I personally helped bring pairing into the daily practices for AAA Insurance for California, Macy’s, Volkswagen, Samsung, Patreon, and others. It’s not just for consultants!
Dig deeper
Why Pair Design Will Make You Feel Like a Unicorn Rocket Scientist by Kim Dowd and Pam Dineva
A smart, cute series by a duo that shared 40 hours a week, a screen, a product, client relations and a problem space. This is their quest to codify the tenets of pair design.
- Pair Design Rule #1: Wear One Hat at a Time
- Pair design Rule #2: “Yes, and…”
- Pair Design Rule # 3: Accept your pair’s exotic habits
- Pair Design Rule #4: Warm-up with Post-It art
- Pair Design Rule #5: So Humility, Such Enlightened, Much Wrong
Pairing with a Design Partner by Karl Dotter
Make beautiful products together. Thoughts on the practice, psychology and methods of pair design. A draft in progress.
Pair Design Pitfalls by Samantha Yuan
Tricky hidden pitfalls she I wished someone had told her
Three Models of Pair Design by Mariya Yao
Studies have shown that while engineering pairs spend 15% more time to build the same software than individuals, their output has 15% fewer defects.
