Building a Great Workspace — The Top 8 External Soft Skills for UI/UX Designers (Part 1).
As highlighted in the last article, soft skills can either be internal or external. There are 8 external soft skills necessary for every designer. We would talk about 4 in this article and the other 4 in the next!
Here is a simple case study to explain these skills:
Shalewa Ajayi, a business administration graduate just got a job abroad and wouldn’t be able to help her mum with the restaurant again. Her mum, Mrs. Sandra Ajayi has been a local restaurateur in Yaba, Lagos for over 10 years and has built trust with her local customers over the years. However, she discovered that over the last 7 months, most of her customers are not walking into the restaurant as often and this was affecting the business returns. Shalewa took a survey to find out how to improve her mum’s business. After the survey, she found that a lot of them gradually stopped coming to the restaurant because they wanted the ease and convenience of ordering their meals online and the meals being delivered to them, instead of having to always come down to the restaurant — this was the major problem. She believes a mobile app would solve this problem, and that’s how a UX designer comes into the picture.
1. Problem Solving
As a UI/UX designer, your primary goal is to solve problems — that means in the above scenario, look for means of connecting the customers to Shalewa’s mum seamlessly in the form of an app, a USSD code, a website or whatever would work best for the users.
A beautiful design that doesn’t solve a problem is just art. Design goes beyond aesthetics. As a designer, you need to have a PASSION FOR PROBLEM SOLVING!
“Design adds value faster than it adds costs.” — Joel Spolsky, web programmer, writer, and creator of Trello
This means you need to understand briefs, make research, ask questions and come up with solutions that align with what the user wants. It requires testing different ideas, iterating repeatedly, making trials till you solve the problem, impress the customer/client and satisfy the user.
Problem solving is a skill that is built with practice and experience. It also depends on the next skill, empathy, which is one of the most important skills designers must have.
2. Empathy
It means stepping into the shoes of another to understand how they feel and see the world through their eyes.
While making research on Mrs. Ajayi’s restaurant, you have to note that two sets of people would make use of the app — Mrs. Ajayi or whoever she puts in charge of collecting orders and the customers. In understanding the problem, you realized that Mrs. Ajayi isn’t a computer literate — she is only familiar with a few apps like WhatsApp, Camera, Gallery and Phone dial on her Android phone. Meanwhile, she has a vast number of customers, most of which are office workers, the mechanics just opposite her shop, students and teachers of schools around.
After interviewing these people, you were exposed to more problems — the mechanics and office workers complained that they were usually not aware of what meals were available and so had to keep their fingers crossed and only hope that by the time they get to the restaurant, the meal they crave the most is available. The teachers and office workers complained about the long queue and loud noises in the restaurant — they got discouraged most times and ended up leaving after a while because their break time was either over or they had to rush back to work. The students had no problems and only expressed their joy in how much they enjoy “Iya Shalewa’s jollof”.
This interview opens your eyes to the other challenges that Shalewa couldn’t see and also helps you understand how the customers feel — in the case of the teachers; Imagine standing all morning to teach hundreds of students, and just when you think your break time will help you rest a bit, you find yourself standing in a queue made up of loud mechanics, noisy students and a clash of plates and spoons!
Empathy helps you find the need to solve those problems, it is a drive to problem solving.
Empathy means being able to step up for the user during the design process because you know their pain points and challenges, their goals and aspirations. Without understanding the gravity of that information, you can’t help the user — you can’t solve the problem you are not aware of. Your designs and solutions need to be User-Centric and this requires you to be empathic.
Going back to our case study; from the data gotten from Mrs. Ajayi and her customers, you know you have to build an app which should be very easy to navigate through, show all the available meals, help people order meals and process delivery with a few steps from start to finish.
3. Effective Communication
Communication is necessary in every part of the design process. You need to effectively communicate with Users to pick out their pain points and goals.
Communicating in the restaurant scenario is highly dependent on who you are speaking with — the way you speak to Shalewa is different from how you’d talk to the mechanics and is completely different from how you’d speak to the students as well. As a designer, you need to understand that people have different levels of understanding and in communication you need to FOCUS ON CLARITY which is based on whom you are speaking to.
You also need to communicate about designs, ideas, concepts to team members, stakeholders, clients and other people if need be. You’d need to defend your results and explain how your design solves the problems the user has. Communication goes beyond verbal words–it involves both written and visual aspects such as presentations, articles etc.
“The single most important lesson of effective communication is this: FOCUS ON CLARITY. Concentrate on precision, don’t worry about constructing beautiful sentences or trying to impress to look good or sound good. Beauty comes from meaning, not language. Accuracy is the most effective style of all.” — David Gerrold
4. Collaboration
In simple terms — LEARN TO WORK WITH OTHERS. Collaboration means working together to achieve a task, project, or even develop ideas. Product design isn’t a one-man job. It requires the inputs of the designers, developers, stakeholders, marketers, product owners and even the users. Collaboration entails you working effectively as a team player. That means learning, paying attention, sharing ideas, understanding your role, the role of others and performing effectively. It also includes respectfulness, organization and reliability.
Conclusion
External soft skills are intertwined–you can’t achieve one and neglect the other. For you to solve a problem; you need to understand the clients and users by empathizing with them. You can only do that when you’ve had a meaningful and effective conversation with them. Solving the problem doesn’t end with you, because the team has to give feedback which would help improve the product and also aid a smooth transition in their respective roles — this brings forth collaboration. With these, you can see that one skill depends on the other to effectively build a great product and a great workspace for the designer.
Watch out for the remaining 4 External Soft Skills in the next Article!
