Design <> Product
I’ve been a designer for almost 20 years. During that time design has gone through so many different phases. I was a “graphic designer”, “visual designer”, “interaction”, “UX”, “product”, etc. I’ve also founded and sold my own company. I’ve made tons of product decisions along the way. Throughout my career I’ve had issues with PMs roles alongside mine. In the best cases it’s been respectful and we’ve formed a team, in the worst I have huge issues with that persons lack of vision or even core technology understanding. Most orgs still have design roll up into product. That’s not always the case with Eng. I’m wondering what people think about how design and product are overlapping and/or colliding with one another.
You’ve kinda nailed it — It all depends on the relationship you can form with Product. If product thinks they can just hand me User Stories, and schedule check-ins they are sorely mistaken. And product roadmaps tend to leave out the problem or overall vision of the product and when designing / building against those feature requests associated with the roadmap will lead to an uninspired, terrible product. And I’d like a product person to know more what value they bring on an individual level... Are they someone who knows how identify market needs and position a product successfully? Are they someone that knows how to navigate organizations and can get things built? Can they make the right connections and get resources? Are they someone that understands the technical aspects of what goes into a product and can push engineering? Granted you probably want a PM to be able to do multiple of these things but when I feel like you’re following someone else’s orders and I’m unsure the value provided I’ll find new partnerships that allow for the product and myself to be successful and I’ll just end up keeping you in the loop when required.
I have a similar background and experience. When PM lack of understanding of Design Thinking or strategic mindset, i put the advocate that subject as my one of the design challenges. Every PM has different backgrounds and maturity to understand what is the product design means for their business.
Precisely why I like the title Product Designer. I design the way the thing works, the PM is responsible for the pre- pre- product aka the vision, pulling in the right people to get the job done, and most of the communication
In my experience, Product Management focuses on the “what”, i.e. which features will best bring value to the customer and the prioritization of those features - with input from design, when we feel strongly about something. Design needs to own the “how”, how the feature is delivered, from an interaction design standpoint etc. In the case of Microsoft, it was a disaster, because they put “Project/Program” managers in charge of feature sets and most have ZERO bg in product management...so it felt like less of a partnership imo. Design & engineering should be like the house and the senate, so if design ever has to report to engineering, it is the worst.
Seems like we are missing the most important part which is “why”. “Why” am solving this problem, “why” this feature matters. If I don’t understand the problem, I feel like I’m missing the a big piece of the puzzle and will come up with a shit design. That’s just my opinion though because I learned about design and product from a place that allowed designers to own everything end-to-end.
Are you still at Samsung? I’ve worked with them internally and as a consultant. They tend to put a lot of emphasis on product managers, and a lot of internal designers (especially at HQ) tend to follow what PMs say as law and put no rationale into their work.
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