Your Designs Don’t Suck!

When you think about design, your mind might leap to polished interfaces or award-winning prototypes. But the truth is that opportunities for great design often arise in everyday, informal moments. These unplanned interactions can be key opportunities to influence decisions and elevate your craft.

Nancy Duarte, a leading communication expert, reminds us that influence happens continuously. Her insight aligns with the neuroscience of storytelling, which engages multiple regions of the brain and boosts memory. Stories, according to psychologist Jerome Bruner’s research, make information up to 20 times more likely to be remembered. For designers, storytelling has an added benefit: it reduces resistance, making audiences more open to fresh ideas.

Here’s how to move from doubt to confidence by focusing on tactical design principles and practices.

Understand Your Audience

Waiting until formal presentations to tell your story can mean missing out on shaping early decisions. Influence is most effective at the beginning of a project when ideas are fluid and decisions are flexible. However, these initial discussions are often scattered and unstructured. To avoid this, form your narrative early.

Narrative Structures to Consider

What Is → What Could Be

• What Is: Set the stage by identifying the user’s current problem.
• What Could Be: Share a vision for the solution, even if it’s not fully formed.

What → So What → Now What

• What: Define the context and the problem.
• So What: Explain why this problem matters to users or the business.
• Now What: Suggest actionable next steps.

Choose the structure that fits your audience and setting. Both approaches scale well from informal discussions to formal presentations.

Start with the Core Problem

Dig beyond surface-level symptoms to identify the root issue. Techniques like the Five Whys can help uncover deeper insights. For instance, during Yahoo Mail’s redesign, initial feedback highlighted a “noisy interface.” By asking deeper “why” questions, the team discovered the true problem: users lacked peace of mind when managing their email. Another example could involve a retail app noticing a high cart abandonment rate.

By delving deeper, they might find the core issue lies in complicated checkout processes, not just “user indecision.” Identifying these fundamental problems allows teams to develop targeted, effective solutions. Techniques like the Five Whys can help uncover deeper insights. For example, during Yahoo Mail’s redesign, initial feedback highlighted a “noisy interface.” By asking deeper “why” questions, the team discovered the true problem: users lacked peace of mind when managing their email.

Define the Significance

Once the core problem is clear, determine its importance. Use research, data, and customer insights to tie the problem to business goals. Be authentic; not every problem needs to be monumental to justify action.

Propose a Solution

Early solutions don’t need to be polished. Focus on directional ideas that outline a path forward. As Duarte’s storytelling principles suggest, the key is to empathize with your audience and frame the solution in a way that resonates.

Know Your Audience

Your audience’s attention is a scarce resource. Research suggests humans can only focus on high-effort tasks for 4–5 hours daily. Therefore, you must craft messages that resonate and stand out.

Define Your Goal to Identify Key Listeners

For example, consider a product launch scenario. If you’re seeking approval from executives, tailor your narrative to emphasize market potential, aligning your pitch with business goals and competitive advantages. Alternatively, when approaching the engineering team for resources, highlight technical feasibility and the streamlined development process to secure their support.

• Approval: Target the decision-makers and their trusted advisors.
• Resources: Focus on building understanding and motivation to inspire action.

Tailor your narrative based on these goals. For instance, in Yahoo Mail’s redesign, one PM framed user pain points like “the overwhelming clutter in the interface,” which resonated with leadership’s focus on user satisfaction and secured their approval. Meanwhile, another PM highlighted metrics such as “a 25% reduction in bounce rate during early tests,” effectively convincing the engineering team of the project’s potential impact and gaining their commitment.

Empathy as a Tool

Empathizing with your audience improves both their engagement and your confidence as a presenter. Reach out beforehand to understand their concerns and design meetings to foster open discussions. Remember Matt Abrahams’ advice: “Dare to be dull.” Focus on connection over perfection.

Create Emotional Impact

To inspire action, your story must evoke genuine emotion. Emotional tension helps audiences connect with the problem and feel the stakes.

Building Emotional Tension

Use visuals to highlight key points, such as infographics that summarize complex data at a glance or mood boards that set the tone for a project. For instance, in a pitch for an e-commerce redesign, showcasing a heatmap that highlights areas where users struggle can effectively illustrate pain points and the need for improvement.

• Include data points that emphasize the problem’s scale.
• Share user anecdotes or personal stories to make the issue relatable.
• Draw on metaphors to simplify complex ideas.
• Cite credible sources, like industry trends or articles, to bolster your argument.

For example, when pitching Yahoo Mail’s redesign, a team member used a car metaphor to explain why aesthetics matter: just as people choose cars that reflect their identity, users value digital products that align with their self-image.

Focus on Usability

A design that looks great but frustrates users won’t succeed. Prioritize usability by making interactions intuitive and seamless. Begin by understanding user behaviors through testing and feedback.

Practical Steps to Improve Usability

• Early Testing: Conduct usability tests at the start of the design process to identify pain points.
• Iterative Refinement: Establish feedback loops to refine designs based on user experiences.
• Consistency: Leverage proven design patterns for efficient and familiar interfaces.
• Accessibility: Engage diverse user groups to account for a broad range of needs, ensuring inclusivity.

By emphasizing usability, you create designs that address real-world problems effectively, delivering tangible and lasting value to your users.

Tell a Story

Nancy Duarte’s principle that “potential moments of influence happen all the time” rings true in design storytelling. Stories have a unique ability to lower defenses, engage audiences, and make your message more memorable. According to Harvard Business, stories make information up to 20 times more likely to be remembered.

Tips for Storytelling

• Incorporate a beginning, middle, and end in your design process.
• Use characters (users) to frame challenges and solutions.
• Highlight transformation — how your design improves experiences.

Collaborate and Seek Feedback

Design is rarely a solo endeavor. Collaboration fosters innovation and ensures diverse perspectives are considered. Engage with team members and stakeholders throughout the design process.

Techniques for Effective Collaboration

• Use brainstorming sessions to gather diverse ideas.
• Share prototypes early to gain constructive feedback.
• Foster an open, inclusive environment where all voices are heard.

Collaboration is not just about reaching a consensus; it’s about pushing boundaries and leveraging collective creativity to achieve the best outcomes.

Stay Inspired and Keep Learning

The design field is constantly evolving. Stay inspired by exploring new trends, learning from others, and pushing the boundaries of your craft.

Ways to Stay Inspired

• Attend design conferences and webinars.
• Follow thought leaders and blogs in the design space.
• Experiment with new tools and techniques to expand your skill set.
• Participate in workshops, challenges, or hackathons to push your creative boundaries and learn by doing.
• Surround yourself with diverse influences, from art and nature to technology and culture, to spark new ideas.

By staying curious and proactive, you ensure your design approach remains dynamic, adaptable, and impactful.

My Thoughts

Your designs don’t suck, but they can always grow. Tactical designers marry creativity with purpose, balancing artistry with strategy. By focusing on understanding your audience, refining your skills, and staying adaptable, you’ll transform self-doubt into confidence and create designs that truly shine.

So, the next time you doubt yourself, remember: It’s not about perfection; it’s about progress.