How good a product designer is? (Part 2)

Explore deep down in the designers’ thoughts. See how we measure how good they are.

In the previous part, How good a product designer is (Part 1), we have walked through the product design process and see how a product designer’s job looks like, and what questions we will face. We have a conclusion that the ability to gather and utilize supporting information used to answer those questions is the main measurement to define how good we are.

Now, let’s explore deeper into our thoughts to see how it works while it is gathering and utilizing information.

Let’s break down the way to measure how good a designer is.

Now we are focusing on an ability to gather and utilize supporting information. We’re going to break it down into four dimensions, each represents a basic ability; Imagination, Coverage, Analysis, and Negotiation or as I called it the “ICAN”.

ICAN, RentSpree’s product designer key abilities.

I is for Imagination

Imagination is an ability to think of unexpected things that haven’t present in front of us. It just comes up in our mind and fades away if we haven’t created a visual copy of it on our design.

Imagination plays its role in gathering information at the very beginning. What supporting information should we gather?. Which questions will be asked or which data we have to know? These are all unexpected things that haven’t present in front of you. As a designer, you have to imagine.

Imagination also applies elsewhere in the product design process.

• When we looks into the pain point of the target group’s daily activities and then came up with an unexpected product idea that can erase those pain point away.
• When we create an artwork for a product and then come up with an unexpected layout of a landing page.

C is for Coverage

Coverage is an ability to guarantee the perfection of things by seeing a little missing detail or broken part of it.

The importance of Coverage in gathering information comes immediately after imagination. Is there anything missing in the information gathered? Is there any other information we need but haven’t gathered yet? Coverage allows us to complete the answer set for our upcoming product presentation.

Coverage also applies elsewhere in the product design process.

• When we look into the current product and sees the missing part of a feature that should be fixed.
• When we designing user interaction flows and come up with a very rare user flow that may causes glitch in the system.

A is for Analysis

Analysis is an ability to clearly understand things and can optimize the capacity of its purpose.

The scene for Analysis in gathering information takes place after coverage. The goal of Analysis is to make us understands the gathered information itself. Actually, we can call it information only after it has been already analyzed and ready to be utilized.

Analysis also applies elsewhere in the product design process.

• When we explore our product and sees a specific part or flow that can be optimized to shorten the time user need to spend.
• When we look at the user records and find out a certain event that can be used as a measurement metric for the product experiment.

N is for Negotiation

Negotiation is an ability to receive or trade what we want from others by communicating with them in the right way.

Negotiation is the final showdown of gathering information process. Actually, it comes in to play in the utilizing part where we are answering questions in the product presentation. What we want from the listener is their confidence in our idea, so we present our idea confidently and trade them with the right information at the right time.

Negotiation also applies elsewhere in the product design process.

• When we run the usability test with the user. What we wants are useful feedbacks from that user, so we have to use a persuasive conversation.
• When we try to agree on the workable solution with the dev team. What we wants is a commitment from them, so we have to use a confident conversation.

Everyone can improve themselves better when they know what to focus on.

Photo by Juan Pablo Arenas from Pexels

Now that we know there are four dimensions to represent how good we are as a product designer. It’s quite obvious that we can find the way to improve each and every dimension piece by piece.

Everyone knows that activities like working, reading, solving puzzles, or socializing are ways to improve themselves. The problem is they don’t understand exactly which part of their brain is being improved if they don’t have knowledge about this.

Fortunately, if you read this article until this line, I believe you have already learned something more or less.

So, what happened when you know what to focus on? You will start to analyze which activity improve which ability. For example, reading about design trends can unbox your Imagination, working on a usability test can expand your Coverage, playing logical puzzles can boost your Analysis, and meeting with your client can improve your Negotiation.

“Let’s get ourselves a better ICAN”