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FORGING ROCK SOLID
Design Disciplines
Laura Van Doore
@lauravandoore
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Looking at design cultures through the lens of:
SaaS & Startups Large Enterprise Agency
Government
@lauravandoore
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Managing Designers is hard.
@lauravandoore
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A quick look at design team models
DESIGN HISTORY LESSON
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Centralised Teams
• The ‘Agency’ model
• Designers work in one team in shared space.
• Other teams approach the central design team
with projects
• Great for creating a strong design disciplines, but
other parts of the product delivery cycle can suffer.
@lauravandoore
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Decentralised Teams
• The ‘Agile’ approach
• Each designer is assigned to a cross-functional team
• Designers have great autonomy, but it can be
challenging to develop their skills further
• Designers can feel isolated and disconnected from
their peers
@lauravandoore
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Hybrid Teams
• The ‘Blended’ model
• Designers are embedded in agile teams, but
regularly return to a central ‘design guild’
• Benefits from cross-functional collaboration, but
retains a strong sense of design culture
@lauravandoore
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3 Models for Design teams
CROSS-FUNCTIONAL MODELS
TRADITIONAL MODEL
CENTRALISED DECENTRALISED HYBRID
@lauravandoore
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• Aligned with agile delivery methods
Designers working within delivery teams to shape outcomes
• Better communication, faster product development
Less chance of communication breakdowns, and bottlenecking
• No ‘us vs them’
Fosters a collaborative culture across disciplines to build great products
The Benefits of cross-functional teams
@lauravandoore
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Cross-functional teams
EXPECTATIONS REALITY
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Challenges of managing designers
in cross-functional teams
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Isolating Designers
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Isolating designers
Designers have more autonomy, but less support &
guidance to turn to when they need it, and less
development/progression opportunities.
The Challenges
@lauravandoore
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Generalist Fever
@lauravandoore
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Generalist Fever
In cross-functional teams, all designers tend to be
treated as if they have perfectly matching skill sets
• How can we utilise design specialisations?
Designers will have different strengths & weaknesses, but
how can you benefit from these if no one works together?
The Challenges
@lauravandoore
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Inconsistent Outputs
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Inconsistent Deliverables
Since output from designers can vary radically from
one designer to the next, no one really knows what to
expect from a designer in their cross-functional team.
The Challenges
@lauravandoore
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Designers feel outnumbered
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Designers feel outnumbered
It can be exhausting for designers to be the solo
design & user advocate in their delivery team.
Engineering priorities can easily overtake UX priorities
The Challenges
@lauravandoore
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Drawing inspiration from Ancient Greek Military strategy
ACTUAL HISTORY LESSON
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The Spartan Phalanx
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The Spartan Phalanx
• Forms a ‘wall of shields’
• Fought in formation in a highly organised
and disciplined manner
• Each Spartan uses his shield to protect
the man to his left
• Codified, streamlined battle training
@lauravandoore
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GETTING STARTED WITH A
Design Guild
@lauravandoore
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The things you’ll need
• Your design team
• A dedicated time slot each week to meet together
@lauravandoore
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Codify Together
#1
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The Idea:
Set aside one day every 6 months for designing
the way you work together.
Codify Together
@lauravandoore
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Codify Together
• Uniformity vs fluidity
Decide as a team what should be locked in & where there’s some flexibility.
E.g. At Fathom, we require Sketch for high fidelity UI, but wireframes &
prototypes can be designed in your tool of choice.
@lauravandoore
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Codify Together
• Templates and guides for common UX deliverables
As a team, design the best possible templates for Personas, Empathy Maps,
Journey Maps, and other common design deliverables your team produces.
This saves time from everyone creating their own versions, standardises the
outputs, and helps newly onboard designers get productive as fast as possible.
@lauravandoore
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Design Pairing
#2
@lauravandoore
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The Idea:
Instead of having one designer on
100% of one project, split two
designers 50% across two projects.
Design Pairing
@lauravandoore
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Design Pairing
The Reality:
• More design iteration, happening at a faster cadence
• Two designers will continually challenge each others
concepts until they are solid
• Work doesn’t grind to a halt if someone gets ill
• Benefits from cross-pollination
@lauravandoore
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A Book Apart
club
#3
@lauravandoore
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The Idea:
Reading the same short book,
and discussing it as a group a
month later.
A Book Apart
club
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The Reality:
Realising way too late that
everyone in our team had
different tolerances for
reading.
A Book Apart
club
@lauravandoore
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A Book Apart
club
Failure
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Pitch & Enrich
#4
@lauravandoore
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The Idea:
Each member pitches their latest
design concepts to the group.
The group offers constructive
criticism & tries to ‘enrich’ the
design further.
Pitch & Enrich
@lauravandoore
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The Reality:
• More robust design choices
• Better presentation skills
• Support, guidance and validation for designers throughout
their design process
• Identify early when experiences are feeling inconsistent
Pitch & Enrich
@lauravandoore
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Universal Design
Presentations
#5
@lauravandoore
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The Idea:
Read & research a principle
outlined in the book
‘Universal Principles of Design’
1 week later, give a 10 minute
interactive presentation to the
rest of the design guild.
Universal Design Presentations
@lauravandoore
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Universal Design Presentations
The Reality:
A complete success.
@lauravandoore
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BENEFITS:
• Improved team presentation and public speaking skills.
• Challenged designers to present concepts creatively &
persuasively.
• All designers became fluent across a standard set of
principles and terminology.
Universal Design Presentations
@lauravandoore
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Codify Together
1
Design Pairing
A Book(club) Apart
Pitch & Enrich
Universal Design Presentations
2
3
4
5
@lauravandoore
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Don’t forget to take stock
@lauravandoore
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Don’t forget to take stock
Regularly ask your designers what they need
out of their guild time.
@lauravandoore
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Crafting a ‘Design Phalanx’
? ? ? ?
@lauravandoore
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Crafting a ‘Design Phalanx’
Core Design
Principles
Codified
Deliverables
Discipline
Strengthening
Design Pairing
(No lone wolves)
@lauravandoore
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Thanks
Laura Van Doore
@lauravandoore