Articulating Design Decisions: Communicate with Stakeholders, Keep Your Sanity, and Deliver the Best User Experience

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For all the key decisions, we document and explain how it impacts the user experience and makes users’ journey easier. How many times has someone come into a project half way through and asked questions that have already been answered, derailing the meeting and forcing you to ‘catch them up’ on the last three months of conversation in a one hour session? As someone who worked for a very meeting-focused company, I can say there are few that are successful.

O’Reilly members get unlimited access to books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers. We present the potential business impact of UI/UX design decisions and how they can help the client grow their product or service. This means that you may have an incredibly innovative and problem-solving design, but you may not get the support you want or need because you can’t speak about the design or the reasoning behind it in an effective way. Tom defined documentation as a single source of truth — a place where all notes about a project (including design reviews and action items) reside. We'll discuss the topic and do exercises together to reinforce the ideas and allow you an opportunity to practice in a low-risk environment.Being mindful of the language you use when communicating your design decisions to clients and stakeholders is important. When you clearly articulate the problems that you are seeking to solve, you build context around why certain design decisions were taken. As an engineer I value technical constraints and want to know the technicality required to make this project successful, so I should focus on how to address these. Starting with why" means that you begin any project or decision by questioning its purpose, its reason for being. Greever also goes over ways in which to optimize your meeting for retention including primacy and recency (people remember the first and last thing you say to them), surprise, and plain old repetition.

I took a mental note and scribbled these down in my notebook with the intention of embracing these more into my process.By contextualizing your design choices in this way, you can demonstrate the rationale behind your decisions.

Anticipating the questions clients may ask and preparing answers to address their queries will help you explore your decisions further and articulate them better. Be open towards taking on feedback and suggestions, but challenge others by asking them “What problem are you trying to solve by suggesting this? Without a clear understanding of why you are making something or solving a problem, it's difficult to make informed design decisions. It’s beneficial for two people who share the same vocabulary to discuss their work and make each other better. Articulating design decisions is a key soft skill for designers that fosters understanding, trust, and successful partnerships in the design process.

Clear communication of design decisions is key to building trust with clients and ensuring team alignment toward a common goal. In many cases, how you communicate with stakeholders, clients, and other nondesigners may be more important than the designs themselves. It improves the clarity and comprehensibility of communication and helps you convey your choices to clients with extra impact.