People Pleasing in Design
A line too many people are willing to cross.
People pleasing seems to be an epidemic in today’s world. We live in a society that gives tolerance the highest honor in the personality trait category. Unfortunately the industry of design and user experience is not exempt from this issue. It is multi-faceted, affecting how the client treats the designer, how the client deals within it internally, and how the designer responds to all of it.
Many might baulk at the idea of a client trying to people please the designer. For many designers this might even seem like an ideal turn of events. Think about your last pro-bono project or the last favor you did for a buddy. How much criticism or feedback did you get? For some of you there might have been some or even a lot. I personally have found that in these situations you don’t hear much at all. In fact I have completed several “favors” for friends recently and heard virtually no feedback whatsoever. Ideal right? Wrong. Many times situations like these will come back to bite you. You will start to hear things second hand, things like so and so wasn’t really happy with the outcome of the project, but because it was “free” they didn’t feel like they could bring anything up. This is people pleasing from the client side. They want to please you because your doing them a favor. This helps no one, the client isn’t happy with the end product and you feel no sense of real accomplishment because you know they aren’t completely satisfied.
The second scenario is much more in line with what we experience day to day. The pleasing of people within a given organization. It usually plays itself out in the middle, middle-management that is. Folks that have people above them and people below them. They are constantly walking a tightrope of pleasure, not for themselves but for the people around them. However, today we are also starting to see this from the top, CEOs and VPs trying to please the “market” and their customer. People like Steve Jobs are now an exception whereas 40 years ago it was common to find people at the top with a clear vision and little people pleasing. How does this affect design? This has one of the most profound affects on design and experience. When your contacts for a design project are so centered around pleasing their managers and executives they are much less likely to think about the end user. They are making decisions (design and alike) around the priorities of specific people in their organization.
I’m in the middle of a project currently that suffers from this level of people pleasing. Their concern and the decisions they have made thus far have been around pleasing each other. Even with a clear vision document in place up front, they continue to exercise decisions that only affect their peers. Not only that but more often than not these decisions affect the end user experience in a less than ideal way. If your in this level of decision making power think twice before you decide for your peers and not your end users.
The last example for people pleasing is in respect to the designer directly. Over the years I have seen designers split into three camps: those that seek only to please their client, those that seek only to please themselves, and those that are in between. The first two groups are fairly self explanatory and deserve full posts in of themselves. However the third group is a little harder to pinpoint. This group is not made up of designers willing to compromise their design at any level to please the client, nor are they the group that’s so self centered you wonder if they have ears to hear. Instead this is the group that is informed. They are well thought out, both as they process through the initial iterations of their designs and as they take in feedback from clients, research and testing. They don’t make decisions based around pressures of pleasing instead they make the “right” decision based around years of experience and a listening ear.
It has been my attempt in the last two years to be part of this group, the third camp, the informed. I started out as part of the first camp, eager to design no matter at what cost. Those years lead to a holy war of sorts, constantly pushing the client to see my way instead of their way. But recently I’ve tried to set those things aside and focus more on the design, more on how its crafted, how I’m willing to adjust when it makes sense. This isn’t to say that I’m perfect, far from it in fact. I still feel a small desire to take up arms when a client offers critical feedback of my work and at times I sometimes just want to say yes to any request just so I can move on.
As you deal with the demons of people pleasing where do you fall? What methods do you utilize in order not to fall into the trap of mediocrity and tolerance? Please share.
I’d say I’m usually part of the third camp as well. I do find myself occasionally falling back into the defensive or get it over with attitudes, but I try really hard to stay open minded.
I try to not get too attached to my designs so I can be more impartial with the feedback. Clients usually know their market much better then I could ever hope to and bring to the table a body of knowledge I should respect. However, I have noticed you need to really establish a mutual respect from the get go and clearly define the roles involved. Once the client feels they’re having to ‘design’ it’s all down hill from there.
I would say the best way for me to keep projects moving along nicely is to get the client on the phone or in person. It’s a lot harder for them to be nasty or over bearing when you’re in their face. This maintains that balance of control and power that’s necessary for a “collaboration”.
Colin: I agree completely, face to face is almost a must when it comes to presenting visual design. If not face to face than at least over the phone or video chat. Email leaves way too much to be read in between the lines.