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About this talk
"Developing Beyond Code" through design saves companies a lot of money, time, and resources. But there are still be many questions about whether or not investing in design is worthwhile
In this talk, I'll be sharing insights on the importance of having designers fully on a team, the cost of bad design, how designers can improve products, and more.
Takeaways
- How to provide design input and increase user satisfaction by contributing to a product from start to finish.
- Pitching design to a community that might not see it as a top priority
- The importance of having designers present projects to the product team
- How designers can help promote good user experience and contribute to company goals.
Slides
>> Click here to view & download slides
🌈 Comment below and ask me questions — I might just answer them during my live speaker discussion!
About Victory Brown
I’m User Experience Designer with over 2 years of experience. I am also an open-source design contributor, writer, and speaker.
As a designer, I get to work with a team of other amazing developers. I love to think of myself as a developer too, although more of my developing work is done without code.
This on-demand talk is part of CodeLand 2021 — a virtual conference brought to you by CodeNewbie & DEV on September 23 & 24, 2021.
Top comments (35)
Thank you for your talk. Wow, you covered a lot of material. Can you explain more about UX research? Is it more qualitative (interviews) or quantitative (surveys) or something else? What tools are commonly used? How much of the UX job is doing research?
Sometimes you need to have a blend of both. Each approach can be used to back up the latter. User interviews, questionnaires, customer feedback are tools for conducting user research.
Well it depends on the company, if the user is the core of the product, definitely more time would be spent researching on the value of the product to the users.
Very helpful information. Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions, both during the live-streaming speaker discussion and in writing.
Thank you for the insight into the product development cycle.
My question is how to improve communication between devs and designers? For example in situations where the design might be difficult to implement?
Usually designers who have done proper research, have a reason for adding certain features. They may sometimes be difficult for the developers to implement but it doesn’t mean it’s not implementable. Constant communication and proper representation of research findings could help developers see another angle and a better way to implement them.
Thank you for the reply :)
Do developers often become designers if they are front end focused, or is it a different path from the start?
I think people usually have a focus, either more developer or more designer. It's helpful for frontend developers to understand design principles and for designers to understand some code (HTML,CSS, maybe JavaScript). However, some front end developers only focus on code and some designers only focus on the visual design.
True. Which is why most companies currently look for designers with basic front end knowledge.
I think I’ve heard of the term UI engineers they basically fix design errors with code. This doesn’t mean they fully understand the whole design thinking process.
thank you for sharing your knowledge especially about design and the importance of working in teams. i've always been amazed by the works of UX/UI designers and that the process of bringing out a product takes a lot more time than one would think. maximizing the quality of a product's design always seemed complex and time-consuming for me, but when you broke it down to many small parts, it gave a clearer image of the process! :D
loved your talk, cheers <3
Thank you. I’m glad I was able to break it down. Sometimes even I get confused by all the big words 😂
What are some ways to get into design for someone coming from a more code-based background?
Do a lot of personal study, research, find a mentor or a community of designers to be a part of 😊
Thank you!
Thank you for discussing the importance of development beyond code!
What are some challenges designers face when getting user experience (UX) right if the stakeholders aren't getting feedback from the end users? Perhaps that's more of a organizations issue rather than design issue.
Thanks again for sharing your ideas and knowledge.
Yeah I mentioned changing your approach. What’s your strategy to getting feedbacks? How long has it been since you switched to the new trends? What’s new in the design market? How can you include that in your Products Development? When you have these figured out, you would be able to draw up a new strategy.
This is a great list of ways to respond to the issue!
Thank you for the thorough and thought provoking response @victorybrown !
When you are first starting out with an idea, what are the best avenues for user research?
Well it all depends on the project. You could start with close friends and families, or send out surveys to random group chats. Note that these surveys must have a description of what you’re trying to pass or develop. The right customers would be drawn to fill it.
Cool, that helps. Thank you!
Thanks a lot Victory for the wonderful talk.
I think most of us don't think about design as we already have designers in our team. I feel irrespective of, if a person is a designer or not, everyone should think atleast a little like designers. So, being a backend engineer, how can one develop their mind to think of design also?
Well firstly I’ll say build your visual skills. Train your eye to differentiate between good design and bad design. A good way to get started on this is by identifying areas on products you use often, that you think could be done better. It could be the color, font size, icon size etc. while working on a project you can volunteer to be a user. That way you get a picture of what you’re working on. Opinions are always welcomed but they need to be backed by proper research and data.
Thank you for all of the detailed information and suggestions!
You’re welcome😊
This is a great talk. Good design is very important. It's part of the "initial attraction" that draws a user in to take interest in an app/ a product/ a website.