The designer takes: soft skills to increase your craft level

Product designers often work as mediators in the world of information technology. They need to balance work goals, user needs and developers ’restrictions. This is why soft skills are important as technical skills. We all know this in theory, but in practice, there is no clear list of the basic soft skills for product designers. Therefore, you may end up trying to master them all, hoping to make you a better designer.

This is exactly what I did until I reached the position of lead designer in Yandex. A few months helped me in the new role in identifying the four main skills I need. Once developed, My design process has become more organizedDo not scramble more between tasks, stay late, or constantly react to urgent requests. With clear priorities and appropriate documents, you knew exactly what to focus on at any specific moment.

I think these soft skills will be useful for any designer, regardless of his degree.

Skill No. 1: Timeboxing for designers

Once you became a major designer, my daily routine changed significantly: it has often become half -day busy with urgent meetings that have not been previously planned. As a result, my weekly schedule began to collapse, and it was difficult to complete all planned tasks on time. I realized that major changes are needed in how to manage my work time.

It has turned from a simple tasks list to scheduling a daily calendar. The logic behind this decision is simple: The menu can be countless, while the time holes in the calendar are limited. It is impossible to click on more tasks in your calendar more than eight working hours. Thanks to this change, I can see the real number of tasks that have been able to Todo in one day.

In my opinion, a The calendar is similar to the application of banks in some way. In it, all voids indicate free time, while the operator’s openings equal to your “budget” of the tasks. When I look at the openings as expenses for different types, I can almost appreciate the amount of task costs and you are the most expensive “expensive” costs.

advice

1. Book from 20 to 30 minutes every morning to determine the priorities of your design tasks: absorptive models, reviews, design guarantee, etc.

2. You do not need to add each one task to your calendar. Instead, focus on scheduling “Concentration blocks” – groups of relevant tasks that require your attention in a specific time frame.

3. Book one hour for lunch, perfectly at the same time every day, and thus the development team or PMS see clearly when you are not available, which prevents sudden meetings during your creative time.

4. Make a specific time for colleagues’ questions. Of course, you will never guess the specified time when questions may reach. However, maintaining an opening for this activity will help you be more accurate in calculating daily “budget”.

I think these four steps are a good starting point for the calendar experience.

If something changes during the day, which leads to the disruption of the plan you prepared in the morning, be sure to make the corresponding changes in your calendar (either at the moment or in the evening). In this way, you will get the fine picture of How do you spend your work timeAnd it will help you in the future planning in the future.

How to deal with urgent questions from colleagues

1. When the developers or PMS communicate urgently about edge cases or implementation details, evaluate whether their question quickly affects the current enemy. If not, you will find such questions related to design at the time of the specific review.

2. Wait until you have a list of uncommon questions. It is easier to answer several consecutive questions instead of attention to answering one question every 10 minutes. This is exactly the reason why you should create a dedicated “Question” hole.

3. If the topic requires your full interest, suggest the answer later or plan to hold a meeting. It will take just a few minutes to create a time opening for it, while the long conversation can distract your attention from your current activity. So, to you where the negotiation skill will be useful: Ask your colleague if the conversation can be delayed. As my experience appears, it is more possible than you expect.

4. Select notifications so as not to disappear immediately after appearing. If you see them, it will be easier for you to estimate whether you can wait for some questions, and not to miss anything really important. If you receive a question in non -call mode, set a notice in a reminder (MacOS). This way, you will not forget to answer your colleague later.

Once you learned how to budget my time, it became easier to constantly provide the refined design and devote the concentrated time for the detailed user interface reviews. The clear time limits allowed me to defend the critical design tasks of unnecessary deviations.

Skill No. 2: Make the summary of the design meeting

Regardless of whether you are young or driving, you will not get all the answers to the tap – especially when Devs begins to grill around the edge cases. However, the more knowledge you have, the more you are appreciated by your colleagues.

Every correct answer, every promise that has been kept, or advice you gave to his teammate in the team will give you the “+1” point to the degree of your work (fake) because it shows that you are a trusted team player.

More than anyone else, the main designer must be well organized and follow all work meetings: he will not allow himself to forget the questions that await the response or promises to be kept.

I try to summarize all the meetings I attend.

advice

1. Record everything that requires changes: new models, new goals, new meetings.

2. If it is appropriate, be sure to take the records. First, it will increase your value for the team. Second, this will help you remember important information. The same applies to 1: 1 meetings.

3. At the end of the meeting, he suggested summarizing the main points. Make sure everyone is on the same page.

4. Choose a common space specially connected to your workflow – such as linking meeting directors directly to the design tasks in Jira, or including them in Figma files, so that Devs and other designers see relevant decisions easily.

How to deal with excessive pregnancy for information

Excess information is a common condition if you switch a company or play a new role.

1. Talk to your colleagues. If you need to take notes, ask the speaker’s literature temporarily. If you feel you are losing the conversation course, ask them to repeat or reformulate their statement in a simpler way.

2. Registration records, especially those that focus on complex design decisions or UX flows. This is useful if you later need to reconsider difficult reactions or clarify edge cases. In addition, these records can be accelerated on new designers who join your team later.

Deal with meeting recordings as a backup copy: they will always be ready for you if you need to set your memories. The files can be kept in iCloud. Just do not forget to clean storage from time to time. Thanks to this skill, I gained a reputation as a well -organized and reliable designer.

Skill No. 3: Documenting your design decisions correctly

Each designing decision comes with hours of research, thinking and meetings. However, after time, some decisions may seem vague or even intuitive. This is the case when one does not mention the notes regularly and accurately.

As a result, some arguments are forgotten in favor of a specific decision. In turn, it brings a new round of discussions about the questions that have been resolved for a long time. After that, a new decision appears that may ignore some details or edge cases. All in all, your team loses valuable time and begins to doubt each other.

To avoid this, it is very important Document all your design decisions.

advice

1. For unclear decisions, be sure of this Leave the comments in your absorption On how you reach this result. The unclear decisions are those that came as a result of the team’s multiple discussions.

2. Do not forget to attach links, discussions of discussions or research that led to a specific decision. My Slack team uses, allowing us to copy links to themes. We often attach this type of attachment to the files we prepare for developers.

This skill helped me not only raise my productivity level, but also to make communication between my teammates more smooth and coherent.

Skill No. 4: See your work regularly

To become a stronger designer, you need clarity about your UX and UI’s strengths, research, communication and other basic skills in your design tool collection. For this reason, it is necessary to track all your work tasks-from the quick user interface modifications to the prominent features to move the scale-and review your design decisions from time to time. This habit will help you understand your strengths and learn about the areas of potential growth.

advice

1. Document every task you have finished carefully. Create a menu with links to tasks.

2. If you work in great tasks as it affects the product standards, try to be accurate when described:

   1. Goals
   2. What I have done – in steps
   3. Results – with standards
   4. Other steps

Maintaining the comprehensive documentation of your design makes it easy to track decisions, repetition in previous solutions, and reconsider the reasons behind developing models when improving features. Instead of spending time collecting previous discussions, you will have a clear reference for the reason for making some options. This habit also simplifies knowledge sharing with his teammates and ensures that the decisions are not lost well over time.

So, let’s summarize that

I allowed me to distribute the time of my work to manage the daily work burden more productive. You can also imagine, build productive days in productive weeks, and support long -term planning as well. When I started making summaries of meetings and caring for documents for team design decisions, communication between team members became smoother and more accurate. Finally, it was usually invaluable to follow my professional development tasks as I managed to review my decisions and set new goals on a regular basis.

I hope these four soft skills, which helped me adapt to the new league, will benefit young designers who are eager to grow quickly.