Design in the open at work
The idea of “designing in the open” has gained tractions in the design community over the last few years. When I joined Science Exchange last July, I decided to give designing in the open a shot. It’s been almost a year now, so I thought I’d briefly share my experience of using an open design process in a work environment.
What does it mean to design in the open?
To me, designing in the open means sharing design work early and often. (Take a look at Brad Frost’s summary and Ryan Singer’s post on this topic). As a designer, it can be daunting to share work that isn’t “perfect” because, like most people, we dread getting negative or critical feedback. That’s why we tend to hide our designs until we feel confident enough to share them, and even then we’re careful about when and who we ask for feedback. This is especially true in a work environment where one’s measured performance is important.
Introduce a more transparent environment
One of our core values at Science Exchange is Openness. We are building an open work environment where anyone can see what other members of the team are working on so we can collaborate better. For designers, it means that we are encouraged to share our work as early and often as possible throughout our design process. Our belief is that extreme transparency can lead to better team work and, as a result, better product/design.
During the past year we tried various methods of sharing design progress and while some of the sharing methods may not be effective for everyone, the key was to make sure we introduce plenty of opportunities for collaboration. Currently we developed a habit of sharing designs frequently via chat clients and task management tools (which are publicly visible to the team), we also hold regular catch up meetings just to share designs and capture feedback in person.
Take aways
Designing in the open and encouraging designers to collaborate on their designs with other team members can potentially improve design quality. Having spent the past year designing in the open at Science Exchange, the biggest difference I have I noticed is a big increase in the number amount of feedback I received for each of my designs. The number of design iterations for all projects has also increased because I’m getting feedback earlier in the design process. And we have yet encounter any “oh *%&# we just wasted x weeks of work on a design that doesn’t meet someone’s expectation” moments, so that’s a very good sign.
The only challenging part about design in the open is to figure out how early and often to share. While we want to share as early and frequently as possible, the act of sharing requires someone’s time and energy to review what you have shared, therefore we have to be respectful (another Science Exchange core value).
The best part about this whole designing in the open experience was the amount of interactions that took place between me and the rest of the Science Exchange team. By creating more opportunities to talk about design with others, I get to see the design from different perspectives, which help produce better design solutions.
tl;dr — the open approach has yielded quicker iterations, more collaboration and ultimately stronger design, when compare to my previous (more conservative) design approach of working privately with a big final reveal for feedback.
What’s next?
We’re building a fun, collaborative and open design environment at Science Exchange. As the design team scales, our existing processes may need to be tweaked but we’re committed to designing in the open and will continue to adjust our processes in order to maintain the right balance of collaboration.
If you’re designing in the open at work (or plan to), I’d love to hear about it. Feel free to reach out to me on Twitter.
We’re hiring designers (and more) at Science Exchange, check out our job openings.
