Articulating Design Decisions

11

Recovering from Disaster

In every difficult situation is potential value. Believe this; then begin looking for it.

NORMAN VINCENT PEALE

AFTER EVERYTHING WE’VE COVERED, I want to be honest and say that sometimes no matter how much we try, we will still need to make changes to our designs that we disagree with. It could be that the people we work with are not willing to budge on their opinions despite our expert suggestions. Or, it’s possible that we just haven’t done a good enough job of making a compelling case for our designs. In this chapter, I propose some options for dealing with changes we disagree with and hopefully recovering from a UX disaster. The purpose is to ensure that we maintain the integrity of the user experience even in the face of disagreement about the right solution.

We’ll cover the following:

• Ways to comply with the request without going overboard

• Seeing the opportunity in these changes, no matter how terrible they might seem

• Deciding to choose your battles and earning a deposit in the bank account of trust

• Learning to recognize when you’re wrong and correcting yourself

• Creating purposeful distractions without being underhanded

• Setting expectations properly about what our stakeholders can expect going forward

First, let’s uncover the root problem that landed us here in the first place.

How Is This Possible?

Being asked to make changes that we disagree with is the very thing we’re trying to avoid. If it’s still happening, we need to correct the ...