The most important part of your job

As designers, we pride ourselves on being great communicators. We go to extreme lengths to communicate with users in a language they understand, enabling them to engage with our messages and feel like they’re part of a story we built just for them. We take great satisfaction from putting ourselves in the shoes of the user, and yet we fail to do the same with those we talk to everyday.

Communicating with people around us is the most important aspect of our profession. Being able to sell our work, justify our decisions and convey the feeling of trust and respect any designer should enjoy, is key for every one of us.

In this talk, I share some stories of how communication can affect our jobs. Some are happy stories, some are not, but all of them have one question in common: how can we apply our creative skills to effectively communicate with people?

Transcript

1. THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF YOUR JOB by Inayaili de León Persson Smashing Conference, Freiburg, 2013
9. ✓ IRC on! ✓ Check email ✓ Update Basecamp ✓ Call team ✓ Check Onotate ✓ Do some designing ✓ Skype meeting ✓ Some more designing
20. It’s crazy not to hire the best people just because they live far away. Especially now there’s so much technology out there making it easier to bring everyone together online. —37signals, “Rework”
21. Out of sight, out of mind
27. The human moment, then, is a regulator: when you take it away, people’s primitive instincts can get the better of them. Just as in the anonymity of an automobile, where stable people can behave like crazed maniacs, so too on a keyboard: courteous people can become rude and abrupt. —Edward M. Hallowell, “The Human Moment at Work”
31. Homework Create one human moment
41. It’s your job as a designer, and a communication professional, to find the right language to communicate with your client. When you say a client doesn’t “get it” you might as well be saying, “I couldn’t figure out how to get my point across. I am a lazy designer. Please take all my clients from me.” —Mike Monteiro, “Design is a Job”
45. Homework Get your point across
50. When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures bristling with prejudice and motivated by pride and vanity. —Dale Carnegie, “How to Win Friends and Influence People”
59. I have spent the best years of my life giving people the lighter pleasures, helping them have a good time, and all I get is abuse, the existence of a hunted man. —Al Capone
61. Perhaps most importantly, professionalism means, in every situation, wilfully gathering responsibility rather than avoiding it. —Andy Rutledge, “Design Professionalism”
62. Homework Listen to the justifications
68. If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from that person’s angle as well as from your own. —Henry Ford
75. Homework Invite participation
79. •New stakeholder peeping in pic
80. Listen.
82. Understand emotions.
84. Find a shared vocabulary.
86. The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read. —Mark Twain
87. Build a narrative.
89. People fail to get along because they fear each other, they fear each other because they don’t know each other; they don’t know each other because they have not communicated with each other. —Martin Luther King, Jr.
90. The end. Thanks for listening, Inayaili de León Persson @yaili Image credits: delicious.com/yaili/smashingconf2013+credits Books and papers: delicious.com/yaili/smashingconf2013+resources