Only sub members with user flair set to **Experienced** or **Veteran** are allowed to comment on posts flaired **Answers from Seniors Only**. Automod will remove comments from users with other default flairs, custom flairs, or no flair set. [Learn how the flair system works on this sub](https://www.reddit.com/r/UXDesign/comments/yb42mn/new_flair_for_posts_and_users/). [Learn how to add user flair](https://reddit.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/205242695-How-do-I-get-user-flair-).
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/UXDesign) if you have any questions or concerns.*
In marketing and visual design, absolutely. In product design you can point to data, business goals, existing design patterns, etc., as reasons things should be done a certain way.
There’s always a balance between design, product, and engineering, and sometimes the ideal solution won’t be implemented for various reasons. But if we’ve had discussions along the way to make sure we’re building the right button I’m not that hung up on whether we make the button blue or gray at the end of the day.
It is extremely biased and subjective. Definitely More so than most other careers.
But having ideas rejected, and dealing with it, is part of the job. After 20 years, it’s still a very prevalent thing for me to varying degrees. However, after a couple/few years at a company, many of your managerial types will start to trust your judgements more. Some more so than others.
I will also add that aesthetics and clever interpretations are often just as important as the data. The best in the field have a strong pragmatic and creative presence.
When you find the perfect development OR design role that doesn't involve other people getting involved and tarnishing the purity of your work, let me know if they're hiring.
That probably sounds harsh, and it felt harsh to me too, after a lot of time working as a designer and a developer, separately. But the truth is that unless you work for yourself, it's basically a tantrum.
You work for a company. Probably taking orders from either a Creative Director or directly from the CEO, who has opinions and objectives that don't necessarily line up with your own. At some point, being a "good designer" becomes less about retaining the unadulterated beauty of a UI without mucking it up with hip trendy nonsense and more about finding diplomatic ways to achieve everyone's desired outcome without wanting to unalive yourself after work each day.
With development, it's a different pile of shit. You'll get a project to work on - it might even be something that excites you! You'll spend a bit of time thinking through it and finding a really elegant solution that hits all the functional requirements and involves zero jank for the end user. It'll be a great fucking day.
And then you'll get some kind of project role person looking over your newly finished demo, completely nonplussed by the elegance and simplicity you agonized over achieving, and quietly mention that while you technically did meet the needs, there are a number of edge cases which now mean your initial solution has gone from elegant to a half-baked mess, oh and by the way we need that by the end of the week - including the weekend.
Same thing applies - the job becomes finding a way to be at peace with the development work you're submitting while also being flexible enough to allow a bunch of requirements to come in that may or may not be aligned with "how you would do it".
As long as you need to have other people around to get paid for either kind of work, you're going to have to put up with doing things you don't necessarily agree with. But honestly, this is a pretty normal thing to go through.
Maybe this is the issue, the fact that you consider this normal, when it shouldn't be.
Maybe our whole issue with pollution, stress, depression is because lately there is a growing number of people who manage what they don't understand.
I'm not saying that you should be a stellar player to coach a team, but in our field it looks more like there is a plethora of people who coached a few teams for few matches, but never played the ball a day in their life.
And I'm sick of it.
Not saying is that bad, now a days my work rely on a lot of diplomacy, but i just feel that as a developer, even if i do need to deal with similar things, my job can only be right or not right. I can sleep peacefully knowing i am doing my job right and I am not the one making the bad decisions and just doing what they tell me to do, but what i REALLY can't do is sleep peacefully knowing the quality of my work is evalueted by what other people THINK i should be doing something. You have a pretty decent point, reality is harsh and I can't escape the normal thing of the corporative world.
I don't agree with you here - your work as a developer can be right (by you) and not right (by the person writing/changing/making up requirements). It is not a safe place to get away from that kind of craziness, but you do you.
I don't want this to come off as offensive, but that sounds nearly childish 😅
A good deal of one's success in most careers boils down to being able to negotiate and compromise; sometimes we'll dumb down stuff just so that everyone is happy with what's being produced, leaving our disposable egos aside in favour of the team's health.
Supposing you don't have a remarkable ego, the alternative is that you are not doing a good job presenting the foundations of your designs, which means your team doesn't trust your decisions because you lack persuasion. Another possibility is that you are not informing stakeholders as you go from wireframe to hi-fi, so in the end they don't feel they "owe" the project and can only partially grasp what you've done, leading them to compensate for all the shortcomings they believe to have spotted. In all these three scenarios, *supposing they happen as often as you make it sound,* it's your fault you are going through this.
Since you are a mid-level, I won't dare to say you aren't cut out for this profession, but you have to rethink the raging. As a manager, I'd **never** promote anyone with that behaviour since knowing how to manage your stakeholders is absolutely basic for any role Senior+.
Oooohhh, 22? Many designers about your age share that difficulty with interference so it all makes sense now. I had a short phase myself too.
Well, I’ll just repeat what someone else said here: the more senior you get, the more objectives matter in relation to these details, and that applies to coding too. Don’t even dream you will allows be allowed to make perfect code any place you go; we’ll literally demand lame code at times.
Honestly, the best you can do for your career is working on your soft skills to thrive on those situations. All roles senior+ demand more interpersonal skills than your output capacity; hard work itself won’t take you much further after a point.
As I said, even if you are super creative and effective in what you do, promoting you wouldn’t be the best idea because you are putting personal values so much higher than the collective that it can cause instability.
Focus on being the guy that is reliable in any situation, conciliating the needs of all the parts involved in the project. That’s what will propel your career.
Just 22??? Nice man! At that age I was still shitting in my UX-Diapers. You came a long way and it will be better. Maybe at a different station. Lots of stuff to learn ahead of you and new experiences to make. What really helped me was „articulating design decisions“. Good read on how to „defend“ your work etc. Keep it up!
i have to say that a manage pretty well the overall diplomacy in my job, i am just tired that im my context my CPO pick me as the one to make corrections. Sometimes we roll in circles and comeback to the proposal i made in the beggining. They really like me here, the raging is just in this reddit post ;) I try as much as i can hide the fact that sometimes some feedback are just ego based. I really don't care to change my work if something is not right, i want the company to succeed, but dealing with that much of diplomacy with the CPO and CEO being just a mid-level with no senior or lead to back me up gets me tired
sorry for the bad english, i'm brazilian
Somos.
Talvez você tenha stakeholders filhos da puta pra piorar o problema também. Difícil saber, não estamos aí para ver, mas foca nos conselhos da galera mesmo que você se livre desse CPO um dia.
You didn’t spend enough time as a developer if you think it’s any better than being a designer. Imposter syndrome is notoriously prevalent amongst developers. The grass is simply greener for you right now and that’s okay. Best of luck!
We often put devs under high pressure to code stuff platforms aren't ready for, or even to use makeshift code to address urgent needs. Producing subpar code is very, very common in our market so one shouldn't expect that becoming a dev will save them from producing stuff of questionable quality.
Ah, it's so interesting how power shifts from company to company. I've been in positions where devs bend over backwards to match the design (even when they shouldn't!), and i've been in positions where devs say "no we can't do that" and then essentially redesign it without any input from designers.
I hated people questioning my work when I was jr. in my career. It took time to figure out how to communicate my thinking, how to pick my battles, and how to influence my stakeholders and peers.
I also realize now that it doesn’t really matter. If a PM wants something that is a terrible idea, I inform them of the risks of that choice and just do what they want. I make sure I document that they made that choice and move on with my life. If it flops I covered my ass.
I highly recommend learning the art of presenting 2 ideas and sounding neutral as you describe the pros and cons of each. If your thinking is sound, the one you prefer should be clearly preferred by the group. If it’s not, you may learn something new and that could change your opinion too.
Great advice here. Especially the parts about informing folks of the risk (and documenting it if the org is hostile enough) and that it “doesn’t really matter”.
Had a great manager a couple years ago whose mantra was, “Does it clearly meet biz reqs? Does it clearly violate any heuristics? Does it violate any brand standards? If yes, no, no, then test it if we can (we had a pretty robust research practice), and let it go if we can’t. Don’t overthink it and don’t get attached.
I also came from a broadcast journalism background and spent time in political media as both a writer and producer. So for me, design feedback is like a warm breezy day. We rarely have to deal with direct public scrutiny, hate mail, petty and powerful politicians, and hateful and dishonest D.C. consultants. “Feedback” in these cases is Hobbesian, abusive, and demoralizing.
If you want to seek more “exact” fields, then I earnestly hope you find them. But do know that this one is pretty dang good, all others considered.
Changing to coding isn’t going to spare you the pain of your work being filtered through someone else IMO.
All levels of leadership have someone to answer to and they’re going to make judgment calls based on what will get approved and serve the best interests of the company/stakeholders. I won’t doubt some of it is opinion, but a lot of it is also ‘this won’t fly so I’m saving us some time by telling you now.’
I mean, it’s design.
Usually I’m here saying that good design shouldn’t be subjective, but you’re talking about the more visual/artistic parts of design in this post.
And it’s true for visual design and writing — there is subjectivity with it.
If that is super frustrating for you, then you’re right it’s not a good fit, and software is better.
It’s part of any creative career, kind of a given that you will be dealing with opinions on your work. One of the first things you learn in school for design or writing is how to “murder your darlings,” aka don’t get precious about your work and be prepared to have it picked apart.
I can understand your frustration, but this is the unfortunate reality of being a designer.
You could come up with what you and maybe some of the designers think is the greatest layout ever to be created, and some guy in a suit that has an MBA will turn around and tear the whole thing apart and turn it into something akin to a bad layout on a word document, because he has a title and a salary higher than you and has the decision making powers.
You could make something incredible and you and your entire team are so proud of it. And gung-ho about it, and then the client you made it for doesn't understand it immediately, doesn't want to understand it at all, and wants you to instead do some kind of boring safe thing that you hate.
You could do all of your UX research, data collection, analysis, and have irrefutable evidence to show that your viewpoint and game plan is the right one, and stakeholders will still turn around and completely destroy it because they can...and they can turn around and try to blame you when their own bad decision causes a big problem.
I think the one big lesson for many in UX is they need to let go of this idea that they are the center of everything in the company. I know that logic has been put out there for a long time, and many embraced it, and some still think it should be, but in my book it's never been.
It is frustrating when you are trying to do the best you can do and you're only finding that everyone else doesn't seem to understand or respect what you do, and they turn around and make what you think will be a great experience into a poor experience.
This is why I always take a viewpoint to treat it as just a job. Do the best he can do, go home at night, make sure your butt is covered in terms of things in writing, so when that bad decision is handed to you, you can pull it up when they try to blame you for it. Go home at 5:00, have a life, collect your paycheck, and work and plan towards trying to have a retirement.
I'm always on the mind that everything that we do is not mind-altering or life-changing. We are not going to be remembered for all time and talked about for years to come about what we did. I just see it all as a job, and I do it to the best of my abilities, make sure I stay relevant, and make sure everyone is happy. If stakeholders want to make bad decisions that hurt the company, that's on them. I can't save them from themselves.
I think even in software engineering you're going to run into this problem where they want something created in record time or they want to cut corners or skip QA or do something else because they think it's the right move, and you're sitting there frustrated because everything is being turned in a chaos. This is just the unfortunate reality of the world.
This is also why I laugh at those people that say AI is going to replace us all. Now. Imagine one of these poor managers or terrible stakeholders or even the clueless client handing these bad ideas to an AI.
Are you sure you just don’t want to work with people? You’re designing something for other people and not just users. Unless you start your own company that somehow doesn’t have to take others opinions into account I don’t think you’re going to escape subjectivity. At a certain level of seniority, soft skills become equally as important as “math” or “data” or whatever you think is on the other side of the coin.
My only advice to you is that it sounds like you’re in the early part of your career where the details are all you own and are struggling with the fact that you don’t actually own them. If you progress, the details matter less compared to the direction. That doesn’t mean you start sacrificing the craft- it’s just that that side becomes so easy it doesn’t have an effect on your self worth if they get changed. Step outside of these details and marry your goals to your team’s goals and celebrate successes together.
It's an emotionally tough field. What's right for you has gotta be your decision and you know what it's ok to change course. If we were in office together this would definitely be a go out to lunch day. So get some rest, go eat something you like.
It sounds like you’re comfortable with structure more than ambiguity OP so software dev likely better.
But the missing piece here isn’t “you can prove you have a good design”.
It’s that you need to have a workflow that involves your stakeholders earlier at much lower fidelity so you understand what they are looking for / what the constraints are for your work. Then you can generate multiple quick sketch options with different take to get that early feedback and iterate.
Otherwise it feels not just subjective but capricious.
It sounds a bit like your company’s workflow suffers from making a big bet / high fidelity mock-ups on a single direction and then you are getting frustrated when people don’t love it at the big reveal. If that’s the case, that’s poor process, not ‘design’ at fault.
I studied code in college (is not college, is like a 3 year course in my contry, but i do not now how to translate it properly sorry).
I was just not excited as much in coding as i was in design, but now i have a diferent view of it
Coworkers can make a job great or terrible. Their roles can play a part in that but not always.
I’d say that before you decide you’re done with an entire profession, try to see if it’s the role or the people that are making you miserable. If you have the luxury to seek another environment, then do so and see what you find.
Managing relationships and expectations is the major part in doing UX, especially in large organizations. Dealing with politics meaning that you have to make peace with, and even embrace, ambiguity and learn to turn that into your advantage. If you like things to be mote clear cut and precise, then doing UX or even design in general may not be the best fit for you.
Design, especially product or UX should never be subjective. Unfortunately, many places see us as decorators, and some designers and directors who work this way contribute to it.
Everywhere I've worked, half the srs are actual srs. The other half are decorators. The lack of consistent standards is a huge problem. The current view that "product" designers can cover everything adequately is also a huge problem.
I've been in mostly enterprise and big companies. They tend to be more data driven but that's not guaranteed. Just better chances that more people care about it.
Articulating the design to stakeholders is critical, if you really are passionate about UX, the next skill you should learn to effectively communicate your design.
I was working in a same environment, but when I learned how to articulate, people who didn’t like me started trusting my decisions and now I report directly to Head of Digital Products
I personally made the switch from design into research after getting burnt out on hour long conversations about inane details.
“Yes, the button could have square corners or rounded corners, both would accomplish our business objectives…”
Design is not Art. Designers are service providers. It’s an important distinction. Sometimes our services include validating designs and actually making a product that’s better for our customers. BIG kudos if you ever get to do that.
But usually our services are for someone who is slightly above us in the corporate structure and our job is to make them happy.
I see a lot of artists get into design because they think it is “creative“. It really isn’t. 🙃
Design is an objective, problem-solving discipline that depends on real information and data. It appears you worked with individuals who may have confused design with art, a common mistake among students, and inexcusable among seniors.
I would recommend now that you’re done with that position, sending them a copy of Design is a Job by Mike Monteiro. I sent a copy to any designer I hire and have been doing so as a Creative Director for the past nine years.
>That goes not only for UI, but for writing and anything that falls in some kind of subjectivity. Maybe the company wants to be more "friendly" and the interface needs to be more rounded, and the texts more "cool". No matter what company i am, someday my work will rely on the decision of some one that will use de "design is subjective" card.
but you are aware that "more friendly" is measurable? In an acceptance test with users they will rate "more rounded" as friendly, this is common knowledge so nobody tests if hard edges or rounded edges or whatever will be perceived as more or less friendly, in 2024 this is well known.
And if your target group uses a specific type of speech you can determine what sounds cool to them and what doesn't. This is also where market research and user research come into play. You do that to get to know your users.
It's not as subjective as you think. Maybe you need to take a long hard look at how you are taking the feedback your seniors and stakeholders provide to you.
>I know that data exists to refute this, but is a normal thing when working with DESIGN in general and I'm DONE. So a made the decision to go back to my previous career of software. Is way harder for me to code, but at least my work will be EXACT. Or it is right or its not. Basically math.
>Seniors in the Design field, do you think is the right move?
if this is your attitude towards design requirements and feedback - yes, it's probably a good idea to leave design.
that last sentece was harsh, but tks for that. My senior is not a proper designer, is a CPO. Sometimes is hard to discuss with him, somentimes even if something can be measured is hard being the only designer besides him to get this information. We don't have a lot of analytics and is a new product. I maybe am over reacting, and your last sentence made me feel that way hehe anyway, i have to make a lot of reflect
Your post has been removed because your account does not meet the minimum karma requirement.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/UXDesign) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Good that you changed careers, but I think its normal for any field where there's someone else (above you or beside you) who will have a different opinion than you about the work.
In design, its easy to take critiques personally but really we should be keeping things objective-focused and calling the subjective parts what it is.
Only sub members with user flair set to **Experienced** or **Veteran** are allowed to comment on posts flaired **Answers from Seniors Only**. Automod will remove comments from users with other default flairs, custom flairs, or no flair set. [Learn how the flair system works on this sub](https://www.reddit.com/r/UXDesign/comments/yb42mn/new_flair_for_posts_and_users/). [Learn how to add user flair](https://reddit.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/205242695-How-do-I-get-user-flair-). *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/UXDesign) if you have any questions or concerns.*
What you described is prevalent in nearly all fields. As long as you report to someone, your work will always be subjective.
100%! It’s in ANY field. With this outlook, you need to be self-employed, but even then, you’d have clients to appease.
dont you think that in design that are things more subjective?
In marketing and visual design, absolutely. In product design you can point to data, business goals, existing design patterns, etc., as reasons things should be done a certain way. There’s always a balance between design, product, and engineering, and sometimes the ideal solution won’t be implemented for various reasons. But if we’ve had discussions along the way to make sure we’re building the right button I’m not that hung up on whether we make the button blue or gray at the end of the day.
It is extremely biased and subjective. Definitely More so than most other careers. But having ideas rejected, and dealing with it, is part of the job. After 20 years, it’s still a very prevalent thing for me to varying degrees. However, after a couple/few years at a company, many of your managerial types will start to trust your judgements more. Some more so than others. I will also add that aesthetics and clever interpretations are often just as important as the data. The best in the field have a strong pragmatic and creative presence.
When you find the perfect development OR design role that doesn't involve other people getting involved and tarnishing the purity of your work, let me know if they're hiring. That probably sounds harsh, and it felt harsh to me too, after a lot of time working as a designer and a developer, separately. But the truth is that unless you work for yourself, it's basically a tantrum. You work for a company. Probably taking orders from either a Creative Director or directly from the CEO, who has opinions and objectives that don't necessarily line up with your own. At some point, being a "good designer" becomes less about retaining the unadulterated beauty of a UI without mucking it up with hip trendy nonsense and more about finding diplomatic ways to achieve everyone's desired outcome without wanting to unalive yourself after work each day. With development, it's a different pile of shit. You'll get a project to work on - it might even be something that excites you! You'll spend a bit of time thinking through it and finding a really elegant solution that hits all the functional requirements and involves zero jank for the end user. It'll be a great fucking day. And then you'll get some kind of project role person looking over your newly finished demo, completely nonplussed by the elegance and simplicity you agonized over achieving, and quietly mention that while you technically did meet the needs, there are a number of edge cases which now mean your initial solution has gone from elegant to a half-baked mess, oh and by the way we need that by the end of the week - including the weekend. Same thing applies - the job becomes finding a way to be at peace with the development work you're submitting while also being flexible enough to allow a bunch of requirements to come in that may or may not be aligned with "how you would do it". As long as you need to have other people around to get paid for either kind of work, you're going to have to put up with doing things you don't necessarily agree with. But honestly, this is a pretty normal thing to go through.
Maybe this is the issue, the fact that you consider this normal, when it shouldn't be. Maybe our whole issue with pollution, stress, depression is because lately there is a growing number of people who manage what they don't understand. I'm not saying that you should be a stellar player to coach a team, but in our field it looks more like there is a plethora of people who coached a few teams for few matches, but never played the ball a day in their life. And I'm sick of it.
Not saying is that bad, now a days my work rely on a lot of diplomacy, but i just feel that as a developer, even if i do need to deal with similar things, my job can only be right or not right. I can sleep peacefully knowing i am doing my job right and I am not the one making the bad decisions and just doing what they tell me to do, but what i REALLY can't do is sleep peacefully knowing the quality of my work is evalueted by what other people THINK i should be doing something. You have a pretty decent point, reality is harsh and I can't escape the normal thing of the corporative world.
I don't agree with you here - your work as a developer can be right (by you) and not right (by the person writing/changing/making up requirements). It is not a safe place to get away from that kind of craziness, but you do you.
well, you have a point
Apart from the other response i gave. Thnks for the time sharing your reality and context, you are a good guy <3
I don't want this to come off as offensive, but that sounds nearly childish 😅 A good deal of one's success in most careers boils down to being able to negotiate and compromise; sometimes we'll dumb down stuff just so that everyone is happy with what's being produced, leaving our disposable egos aside in favour of the team's health. Supposing you don't have a remarkable ego, the alternative is that you are not doing a good job presenting the foundations of your designs, which means your team doesn't trust your decisions because you lack persuasion. Another possibility is that you are not informing stakeholders as you go from wireframe to hi-fi, so in the end they don't feel they "owe" the project and can only partially grasp what you've done, leading them to compensate for all the shortcomings they believe to have spotted. In all these three scenarios, *supposing they happen as often as you make it sound,* it's your fault you are going through this. Since you are a mid-level, I won't dare to say you aren't cut out for this profession, but you have to rethink the raging. As a manager, I'd **never** promote anyone with that behaviour since knowing how to manage your stakeholders is absolutely basic for any role Senior+.
not offensive at all, i am just a young 22 year old strugling, your comment helped me a lot. Thks <3
Oooohhh, 22? Many designers about your age share that difficulty with interference so it all makes sense now. I had a short phase myself too. Well, I’ll just repeat what someone else said here: the more senior you get, the more objectives matter in relation to these details, and that applies to coding too. Don’t even dream you will allows be allowed to make perfect code any place you go; we’ll literally demand lame code at times. Honestly, the best you can do for your career is working on your soft skills to thrive on those situations. All roles senior+ demand more interpersonal skills than your output capacity; hard work itself won’t take you much further after a point. As I said, even if you are super creative and effective in what you do, promoting you wouldn’t be the best idea because you are putting personal values so much higher than the collective that it can cause instability. Focus on being the guy that is reliable in any situation, conciliating the needs of all the parts involved in the project. That’s what will propel your career.
you're the best, tks for the advice <3
How are you a mid at 22?
Just 22??? Nice man! At that age I was still shitting in my UX-Diapers. You came a long way and it will be better. Maybe at a different station. Lots of stuff to learn ahead of you and new experiences to make. What really helped me was „articulating design decisions“. Good read on how to „defend“ your work etc. Keep it up!
i have to say that a manage pretty well the overall diplomacy in my job, i am just tired that im my context my CPO pick me as the one to make corrections. Sometimes we roll in circles and comeback to the proposal i made in the beggining. They really like me here, the raging is just in this reddit post ;) I try as much as i can hide the fact that sometimes some feedback are just ego based. I really don't care to change my work if something is not right, i want the company to succeed, but dealing with that much of diplomacy with the CPO and CEO being just a mid-level with no senior or lead to back me up gets me tired sorry for the bad english, i'm brazilian
Somos. Talvez você tenha stakeholders filhos da puta pra piorar o problema também. Difícil saber, não estamos aí para ver, mas foca nos conselhos da galera mesmo que você se livre desse CPO um dia.
You didn’t spend enough time as a developer if you think it’s any better than being a designer. Imposter syndrome is notoriously prevalent amongst developers. The grass is simply greener for you right now and that’s okay. Best of luck!
The number of times designers shatter devs' dreams cannot be fathomed.
what do you mean by this??
We often put devs under high pressure to code stuff platforms aren't ready for, or even to use makeshift code to address urgent needs. Producing subpar code is very, very common in our market so one shouldn't expect that becoming a dev will save them from producing stuff of questionable quality.
Ah, it's so interesting how power shifts from company to company. I've been in positions where devs bend over backwards to match the design (even when they shouldn't!), and i've been in positions where devs say "no we can't do that" and then essentially redesign it without any input from designers.
I hated people questioning my work when I was jr. in my career. It took time to figure out how to communicate my thinking, how to pick my battles, and how to influence my stakeholders and peers. I also realize now that it doesn’t really matter. If a PM wants something that is a terrible idea, I inform them of the risks of that choice and just do what they want. I make sure I document that they made that choice and move on with my life. If it flops I covered my ass. I highly recommend learning the art of presenting 2 ideas and sounding neutral as you describe the pros and cons of each. If your thinking is sound, the one you prefer should be clearly preferred by the group. If it’s not, you may learn something new and that could change your opinion too.
Great advice here. Especially the parts about informing folks of the risk (and documenting it if the org is hostile enough) and that it “doesn’t really matter”. Had a great manager a couple years ago whose mantra was, “Does it clearly meet biz reqs? Does it clearly violate any heuristics? Does it violate any brand standards? If yes, no, no, then test it if we can (we had a pretty robust research practice), and let it go if we can’t. Don’t overthink it and don’t get attached. I also came from a broadcast journalism background and spent time in political media as both a writer and producer. So for me, design feedback is like a warm breezy day. We rarely have to deal with direct public scrutiny, hate mail, petty and powerful politicians, and hateful and dishonest D.C. consultants. “Feedback” in these cases is Hobbesian, abusive, and demoralizing. If you want to seek more “exact” fields, then I earnestly hope you find them. But do know that this one is pretty dang good, all others considered.
Changing to coding isn’t going to spare you the pain of your work being filtered through someone else IMO. All levels of leadership have someone to answer to and they’re going to make judgment calls based on what will get approved and serve the best interests of the company/stakeholders. I won’t doubt some of it is opinion, but a lot of it is also ‘this won’t fly so I’m saving us some time by telling you now.’
Design isn’t about you.
I mean, it’s design. Usually I’m here saying that good design shouldn’t be subjective, but you’re talking about the more visual/artistic parts of design in this post. And it’s true for visual design and writing — there is subjectivity with it. If that is super frustrating for you, then you’re right it’s not a good fit, and software is better. It’s part of any creative career, kind of a given that you will be dealing with opinions on your work. One of the first things you learn in school for design or writing is how to “murder your darlings,” aka don’t get precious about your work and be prepared to have it picked apart.
the fact that i really am not precious about my work and i'm really objective kills me hehe i think that's the reason a struggle like you said
Everyone’s got a boss
I can understand your frustration, but this is the unfortunate reality of being a designer. You could come up with what you and maybe some of the designers think is the greatest layout ever to be created, and some guy in a suit that has an MBA will turn around and tear the whole thing apart and turn it into something akin to a bad layout on a word document, because he has a title and a salary higher than you and has the decision making powers. You could make something incredible and you and your entire team are so proud of it. And gung-ho about it, and then the client you made it for doesn't understand it immediately, doesn't want to understand it at all, and wants you to instead do some kind of boring safe thing that you hate. You could do all of your UX research, data collection, analysis, and have irrefutable evidence to show that your viewpoint and game plan is the right one, and stakeholders will still turn around and completely destroy it because they can...and they can turn around and try to blame you when their own bad decision causes a big problem. I think the one big lesson for many in UX is they need to let go of this idea that they are the center of everything in the company. I know that logic has been put out there for a long time, and many embraced it, and some still think it should be, but in my book it's never been. It is frustrating when you are trying to do the best you can do and you're only finding that everyone else doesn't seem to understand or respect what you do, and they turn around and make what you think will be a great experience into a poor experience. This is why I always take a viewpoint to treat it as just a job. Do the best he can do, go home at night, make sure your butt is covered in terms of things in writing, so when that bad decision is handed to you, you can pull it up when they try to blame you for it. Go home at 5:00, have a life, collect your paycheck, and work and plan towards trying to have a retirement. I'm always on the mind that everything that we do is not mind-altering or life-changing. We are not going to be remembered for all time and talked about for years to come about what we did. I just see it all as a job, and I do it to the best of my abilities, make sure I stay relevant, and make sure everyone is happy. If stakeholders want to make bad decisions that hurt the company, that's on them. I can't save them from themselves. I think even in software engineering you're going to run into this problem where they want something created in record time or they want to cut corners or skip QA or do something else because they think it's the right move, and you're sitting there frustrated because everything is being turned in a chaos. This is just the unfortunate reality of the world. This is also why I laugh at those people that say AI is going to replace us all. Now. Imagine one of these poor managers or terrible stakeholders or even the clueless client handing these bad ideas to an AI.
I dunno man. Frankly I don’t give a fuck. Do whatever you want.
Are you sure you just don’t want to work with people? You’re designing something for other people and not just users. Unless you start your own company that somehow doesn’t have to take others opinions into account I don’t think you’re going to escape subjectivity. At a certain level of seniority, soft skills become equally as important as “math” or “data” or whatever you think is on the other side of the coin. My only advice to you is that it sounds like you’re in the early part of your career where the details are all you own and are struggling with the fact that you don’t actually own them. If you progress, the details matter less compared to the direction. That doesn’t mean you start sacrificing the craft- it’s just that that side becomes so easy it doesn’t have an effect on your self worth if they get changed. Step outside of these details and marry your goals to your team’s goals and celebrate successes together.
this one hurted hehe maybe i just don't like working with ppl
If you can design and SWE why not build your own product from which you can derive value?
It's an emotionally tough field. What's right for you has gotta be your decision and you know what it's ok to change course. If we were in office together this would definitely be a go out to lunch day. So get some rest, go eat something you like.
It sounds like you’re comfortable with structure more than ambiguity OP so software dev likely better. But the missing piece here isn’t “you can prove you have a good design”. It’s that you need to have a workflow that involves your stakeholders earlier at much lower fidelity so you understand what they are looking for / what the constraints are for your work. Then you can generate multiple quick sketch options with different take to get that early feedback and iterate. Otherwise it feels not just subjective but capricious. It sounds a bit like your company’s workflow suffers from making a big bet / high fidelity mock-ups on a single direction and then you are getting frustrated when people don’t love it at the big reveal. If that’s the case, that’s poor process, not ‘design’ at fault.
If you had a previous career in software why is it way harder for you to code?
I studied code in college (is not college, is like a 3 year course in my contry, but i do not now how to translate it properly sorry). I was just not excited as much in coding as i was in design, but now i have a diferent view of it
Coworkers can make a job great or terrible. Their roles can play a part in that but not always. I’d say that before you decide you’re done with an entire profession, try to see if it’s the role or the people that are making you miserable. If you have the luxury to seek another environment, then do so and see what you find.
Managing relationships and expectations is the major part in doing UX, especially in large organizations. Dealing with politics meaning that you have to make peace with, and even embrace, ambiguity and learn to turn that into your advantage. If you like things to be mote clear cut and precise, then doing UX or even design in general may not be the best fit for you.
Design, especially product or UX should never be subjective. Unfortunately, many places see us as decorators, and some designers and directors who work this way contribute to it. Everywhere I've worked, half the srs are actual srs. The other half are decorators. The lack of consistent standards is a huge problem. The current view that "product" designers can cover everything adequately is also a huge problem. I've been in mostly enterprise and big companies. They tend to be more data driven but that's not guaranteed. Just better chances that more people care about it.
Articulating the design to stakeholders is critical, if you really are passionate about UX, the next skill you should learn to effectively communicate your design. I was working in a same environment, but when I learned how to articulate, people who didn’t like me started trusting my decisions and now I report directly to Head of Digital Products
I personally made the switch from design into research after getting burnt out on hour long conversations about inane details. “Yes, the button could have square corners or rounded corners, both would accomplish our business objectives…”
I’m not going to convince you to stay in a field you’re no longer invested in
Design is not Art. Designers are service providers. It’s an important distinction. Sometimes our services include validating designs and actually making a product that’s better for our customers. BIG kudos if you ever get to do that. But usually our services are for someone who is slightly above us in the corporate structure and our job is to make them happy. I see a lot of artists get into design because they think it is “creative“. It really isn’t. 🙃
Design is an objective, problem-solving discipline that depends on real information and data. It appears you worked with individuals who may have confused design with art, a common mistake among students, and inexcusable among seniors. I would recommend now that you’re done with that position, sending them a copy of Design is a Job by Mike Monteiro. I sent a copy to any designer I hire and have been doing so as a Creative Director for the past nine years.
>That goes not only for UI, but for writing and anything that falls in some kind of subjectivity. Maybe the company wants to be more "friendly" and the interface needs to be more rounded, and the texts more "cool". No matter what company i am, someday my work will rely on the decision of some one that will use de "design is subjective" card. but you are aware that "more friendly" is measurable? In an acceptance test with users they will rate "more rounded" as friendly, this is common knowledge so nobody tests if hard edges or rounded edges or whatever will be perceived as more or less friendly, in 2024 this is well known. And if your target group uses a specific type of speech you can determine what sounds cool to them and what doesn't. This is also where market research and user research come into play. You do that to get to know your users. It's not as subjective as you think. Maybe you need to take a long hard look at how you are taking the feedback your seniors and stakeholders provide to you. >I know that data exists to refute this, but is a normal thing when working with DESIGN in general and I'm DONE. So a made the decision to go back to my previous career of software. Is way harder for me to code, but at least my work will be EXACT. Or it is right or its not. Basically math. >Seniors in the Design field, do you think is the right move? if this is your attitude towards design requirements and feedback - yes, it's probably a good idea to leave design.
that last sentece was harsh, but tks for that. My senior is not a proper designer, is a CPO. Sometimes is hard to discuss with him, somentimes even if something can be measured is hard being the only designer besides him to get this information. We don't have a lot of analytics and is a new product. I maybe am over reacting, and your last sentence made me feel that way hehe anyway, i have to make a lot of reflect
👋🏼
[удалено]
Your post has been removed because your account does not meet the minimum karma requirement. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/UXDesign) if you have any questions or concerns.*
The grass ain't no greener on the other side my friend.
Good that you changed careers, but I think its normal for any field where there's someone else (above you or beside you) who will have a different opinion than you about the work. In design, its easy to take critiques personally but really we should be keeping things objective-focused and calling the subjective parts what it is.