5 ways to connect with the Tech Team… and not die trying
I’m a big advocate for how Design and Technology must work together to make someone’s existence easier. But as good as this might sound, it is not always easy to get these two sides of the same coin to work together peacefully, a lot of times can feel like a warzone or like you are going through a hell of a time divorce.
And maybe you all are thinking “A divorce? That’s like a lot.” Yes, I’m using this word strategically because when we, as designers (whether you are a UX or a UI), we do not partner enough with our technology counterparts, we are doing the same mistakes people with failing relationships do, and with terrible outcomes that affect a third-party person, in this case, our users, yes, those users that we as USER experience designers always preach for.
My experience has taught me a lot about how to build a good relationship with the technology team and be a true partner to each other. I even built great friendships there.
None less to say, this is both ways. It takes a village to build valuable experiences, which is not something the technology team can do alone, and for sure as designers, we cannot do either. So, this is the first lesson, everyone says it and it sounds cheap by now, but a cliché becomes a cliché because it is valid enough.
1. YOU NEED A TEAM MINDSET.
If you are going solo or have a Rockstar approach to your solutions, you are aiming for failure most of the time. This is a cold truth. Unless you are a unicorn designer with Frontend, backend, architect, tester, product owner, or product manager skills (for those who do have all these skills, my respect to you), otherwise most of the time you need to be part of a team and behave like a true team member, not like a client that it is only demanding features with no context and being totally agnostic to technology, that brings me to my second advice.
2. LEARN ABOUT THE TECHNOLOGY
Let’s be honest here, I am not talking about getting a degree in engineering or learning on a deep level how to build mobile apps. I am talking about understanding the technology your team is using to build the experience you are designing for.
- What are the reasons behind the decision to use that technology?
- What does that technology provide?
- What are the constraints that the technology has?
- What is the value the technology brings to the table?
- Is it a third-party solution? Is it an in-house building?
- How much can you customize the technology? Is the sky the limit?
Here I could give an extensive list of questions I need to ask when I am designing for new technology. It is pretty like to what we need to do as UX Designers, we need to have a deep understanding of the technology as much as we need to understand our users. This will help you to design better proposals that meet the needs of your users, and to mitigate the pushback from the technology team as you already took the time to understand, at least to some level, the tool they are using to build the solution.
And you could be thinking: “What about when the technology is not enough?” and that happens a lot. In that case, if you have done your homework, you will have at least some level of understanding of the reasons why the technology is not working and What needs to be different, and you will now have some backup to bring that challenge to your technology or product colleagues to work together on finding a different option that meets the needs of your users. Or at least you will understand why technology cannot be changed and you will stop suffering until eternity expecting something different.
3. INVOLVE THE TEAM
Sometimes we make the mistake of relying on our technology partners only to validate if the proposal is feasible or not, which clearly is important, right? But, what about if we change this into a truly collaborative approach?
What if we invite our developers to attend user testing? They might see things you are not seeing. Socialize testing results with them, usually, these results are presented to designers and business partners only but sharing them with the technology team helps to create empathy towards the user and makes the technology team feel like a real member of the team.
What if after sharing common knowledge of the user we ask their thoughts about a particular problem we are trying to resolve? We might receive ideas that will help us to build better designs. Also, will give a purpose to the technology team and encourage them to find different approaches on how to use the technology to build towards the goal of helping the user to complete something in the easiest way possible and this takes me to my next point.
4. TALK THROUGH IT
When I was starting my career, I went to devs with a specific solution that was not feasible in the way I expected. When I shared the real user problem with them, they made suggestions I couldn’t even imagine because I didn’t have a deep understanding of what technology could achieve. After involving the team, and sharing the real problem the user had, it switched to a working session where we all shared our point of view, building a solution together and having a real discussion about what was important and how we could resolve it together.
Creativity is inherited by every human being, no matter how logical you might look like, and that includes our technology partners. When we discuss our thoughts and ideas on how to resolve user needs, it always amazed me how innovative the answers of our technology partners could be (sometimes even a little jealous that I didn’t think that myself though). Discuss the problem you need to resolve with them and let them amaze you with their ideas.
“Creativity is inherited by every human being, no matter how logical you might look like… let them amaze you with their ideas.”
5. LEARN AND TEACH THE JARGON
I know, I hate jargon too. As designers, we need to handle a big amount of design, marketing, and corporate jargon daily, even when we try to avoid it. So, it’s a boomer having to handle one more. A former leader of mine once told me that if you really wanted to make an impact in a team you needed to communicate using the word they use, this advice is no different from one of our cores as UX designers: communicating to our users in the terms they already know or using the patterns they already use.
A lot of times we make the mistake of thinking that the way we do it, the way we name it, it’s the right way, and we expect our technology partners to change their ways to ours. But changing a behavior is one of the most complicated things to do (not impossible though, just difficult). What if we take our time to learn their ways and the reasons behind them, what if we try building and sharing a common language?
So, take the time to listen to how your team communicates, which words they use, how they use them and in which context. Also, teach them your vocabulary too, what does it mean when you are referring to a “persona” or what do you mean by heuristics. This will improve communication between the team and help to ensure that you all have the same understanding of what you are trying to achieve together.
Finally, building a good relationship with your technology team is not a one-size-fits-all solution, each team is different, each individual member is different, and each problem we’re trying to solve is different. So my final advice for you would be to take a moment each time you join a new team, sit for a minute, observe and listen, learn their current process and why they use it, learn the context of why things are the way they are and write down the opportunity areas you could improve with time and be patient, good missionaries do not arrive and destroy the customs of the communities they visit. They learn their customs first; they practice them and then see where they can help improve.
You will be able to make an impact on the team, as long as you are open to being a true partner.
See you later UX-lators.
