Driven by Design

I get asked daily about what "good" designers do. I've answered that question many times in other works, so I wanted to take a look at the other side of the coin. In this short piece, I share the common habits of ineffective designers that I've seen in the last couple of years. There are lots of things ineffective designers do, but I wanted to focus on some of the issues that can be resolved with mainly mindset adjustments. I talk a lot about the philosophy of curation vs. pixel-pushing in my work. While that generally applies to many things, I believe that a pixel-pusher can be an effective designer given the context of this list. I’m just as shocked as you are, but as they say, "even a broken clock is right twice a day." So what do I mean by that? The ineffectiveness of designers seems to stem more from a lack of care than a lack of experience, and while there is some crossover, I've found that even pixel-pushers can get a majority of these habits right. While pixel-pushers may struggle with empathy, feedback, and designing in a vacuum, they're struggling with a lack of experience. A truly ineffective designer can be dangerous for the team’s culture, and it’s the lack of care, not ineffectiveness, that troubles me.