Trust & Design – its all about trust

Design is subjective by character. Design shapes up the way you build it. Every stage & every element that needs to be designed have multiple solutions. Every solution has its own pros and cons. And what you choose defines the next set of options you will get in the next stage. Not only do you have to think of elements alone but also how they interact with the rest of the elements. Thus design is subjective – it all depends on the design decision that we take along the process.

Subjectivity & multiple solutions: call for conflict
This subjectivity and multiple solutions create conflict in design. If you are a designer and work with Product Managers you would have faced these kinds of debates. There would be occasions when you would land up in a situation where the design choices are even. Both have their own qualities. What do you do? Use reasoning of course. And to add to the complexity in designer’s life – every one can think about design. It’s something that every one encounters and thus they have ideas or opinions about it. Design is primarily thought driven than skill driven; and thus every one can think. The only differentiator for designer is the ‘awareness’ and his ability analyze more parameters than the untrained designers.

Trust
Thus a designer’s job isn’t only to provide design solutions; there is a lot that goes ‘behind the scene’. As a designer the first thing you want to do is build ‘respect’ and ‘trust’. Very often you would land us in these 50-50 choices; and here how much you team trust you makes a huge difference. Not every small decision can be tested with user thus you need to be responsible and careful with your design decisions. One error and you’ll lose you ‘veto’ power.

Moving to new team? You are back to zero
This could be one of the reasons why some designers don’t want to shift teams. Every time you move to another team you are back to ‘zero’. You again have to build your respect and trust. As design is subjective unlike mathematics or engineering so it becomes really difficult to prove your solutions.

I guess ‘design’ is all about ‘trust’ – trust in you decisions and trust in you by your team.