Being Designerly: Advocate for Others

In this series of posts about Being Designerly, we explore ways to be more creative by thinking, feeling, and acting like a designer. Previous posts covered designerly behaviors and skills like Putting People First, Curiosity, Observation, Critical Thinking, and Empathy; this one is about being an advocate for others.

Advocate for Others: actively representing and championing the interests and needs of people, especially in their absence.

I own a T-shirt with the message “You Are Not The User” to remind myself and others that we should always keep the actual user in mind while designing and building products, and advocate for their needs.

User-centered design is the foundation of designers’ role in advocating for users throughout the design process. Good designers involve users throughout the process and champion user needs when they are not present. Advocating for users is also crucial for inclusive design, which considers the needs and perspectives of all users, including those with disabilities, diverse cultural backgrounds, and varying levels of expertise. Another way designers can advocate for users is through ethical design and protecting users from harmful design patterns and tactics.

What are some ways to advocate for users?

• Involve actual users throughout the design process. Actual users, not AI-generated users (intentionally not linking that service here). User research with real users is so much easier and quicker these days, there’s no reason not to.

• Invite stakeholders and developers to observe live user research and usability sessions as “a fly on the wall”. A few sessions give everyone a newfound understanding of customer pain points after seeing them jump through hoops to complete tasks.

• Share findings from research and usability testing. Long reports may get circulated widely, but not read as much; interactive presentations are effective.

• Create short highlight reels showing where users struggled during the usability tests, as well as their brutally honest feedback that highlight key issues. This is an effective way to widen the reach, especially of executives who may not have been able to attend the live sessions.

• Make your users and their journeys visible to everyone. Many design teams have rooms where they put up posters of personas and journeys. Even better is going where people are. A previous client did this by putting life-size cutouts of their personas around high footfall areas of their offices, like the cafeteria, to make them more visible.

• When discussing features, updates, and user stories during the design and development lifecycle, use your knowledge of users to represent them in these decisions.

These are a few ways to advocate for users and spread that advocacy to others involved. User advocacy is at the heart of designerly skills and behaviors. It brings curiosity, being observant and empathy to life and turns that respect for users into action to address their needs.

In a couple of weeks, we will discuss Working Transparently, another designerly behavior related to the heart (feeling). If you haven’t already, sign up for curated content on the topic every other week at news.beingdesignerly.com. I hope these will help you, designer or not, be more creative and innovative by being designerly!