As a UX designer you are the one that can keep the project simple and avoid scope creep. Cement your legacy with the special gifts UX designers got.
You have two skills that are very rare. With these skills you can save everyone involved a lot of money and time. It is not your main responsibility to save the project since there are project managers, product managers or other managers. But as a UX designer you can be the hero in a project gone wrong.
You are not the hero that the project deserves, but the hero the project needs. Somewhat like Batman.
How?
With your special utility belt you can be the Dark Knight of the project. So how can you Bruce-Wayne your way through a project that has the scope creep of Gotham proportions? (I’ll stop using DC references from here.)
You have 2 skills that can save lives:
- You know how to keep the product simple and thus save time and money.
- You know how to communicate this simplicity in an effective way to all stakeholders.
Let’s dive deeper into this.
1. You know how to keep it simple
As a UX designer you research the end user’s need and create a product based on that research. You test whether a feature addition improves the product or complicates it.
If some of those additional features complicate the product, you can decide to leave them out. You are the one who has an overview of the product and you ‘feel’ — through experience — at which point the product is becoming unusable.
Because you — almost intuitively — feel that a certain addition is ‘costing’ the experience, you might also notice it is costing in other important resources: time (specially that of developers) and money.
This intuitive feeling, or Spider sense, gives you an important advantage in every project. This makes you one of the people that can save the project. And even though ‘saving the project’ is the main task of product/project managers, you can’t deny your special power.
With great power comes great responsibility. (I didn’t say I wouldn’t use Marvel references.) That power means you could take on the responsibility to save the project. So how do you do that?
2. You know how to communicate effectively to stakeholders
Here are some things you can explain to stakeholders.
2.1 Adding features increases project scope exponentially
You know the impact of the complexity on time and money. Adding extra features can increase project time exponentially. When adding a new features, this feature has to work well with other features.
If you, for example, had four features and added a fifth one, the fifth feature should work smoothly with the other four. In terms of testing it means the fifth feature can break other features. In terms of support it means you have to offer extra support when features break.
2.2. Project documentation and communication increases exponentially
When adding an extra feature, project documentation can also increase exponentially. Not only do you have to describe this new feature but you have to describe how all features interact together. Sometimes this even requires going back to the drawing board to redesign already existing features to welcome the new — perhaps unnecessary — feature.
Once we have every feature documented, it should also be fully understood by all project members. This may seem like a minor increase in time spent on the project but it is usually a hidden cost. This impact of this issue is only felt when the documentation is not understood correctly and the features are not developed correctly.
At this point the project requires new communication, documentation or even extra resources in order to save the project. But all these new additions further complicate the project.
So the UX designer’s advice boils down to: “keep it simple and focus on the critical features”.
2.3 Show examples of simple websites/apps and why they are successful
As a UX designer I leave it up to you to find the examples you like most. For me those examples have one thing in common: the time not spent on redundant features is spent on the features that make the biggest difference.
Imagine you have a team of developers spending extra and focussed time on just a few critical features. That would increase the experience of those features exponentially because they are worked out in such detail that they grant the best customer satisfaction.
Conclusion
Simplicity is usually an overlooked part of a project. A lot of times we unknowingly get caught in complexity. Usually they come about because of good intentions and different stakeholders have good arguments to suggest extra features. For example by comparison with a competitor.
The UX designer is an important spider in this complex web when building a new product. The UX designer is usually the first to see the problem and has the skills to communicate this. If you happen to be a UX designer, try to grow into a role of ‘overseer’. It helps you become a better UX designer, communicator and build more lovable products.
