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title: Engineering led design created_at: 2020-04-20T14:52:16.823Z updated_at: 2020-06-11T14:52:16.823Z tldr: A different approch for designing products is_published: 1 star: false category: Technical share_type: add

Nothing against designer, they are great. They do great visual work, keep the design consistent, nail the user flow, and clean information architecture. For a commodity-led design, this works and there is no other way about it.

But when the end-user is an engineer the dynamics change.

Usually, the flow starts from form PM + Design, one of the designs is handed over to engineers. Initially, the design gets hacked into, but later on, engineers come back with a technical limitation, or the designers test this live and the flow needs to change and this iteration goes on for a few rounds. Crossing multiple deadlines.

A better team would be PM + Engineer. Quickly get to multiple solutions. Pen and paper sketches. Hack a few prototypes. Test out what works quickly. Then get the designers in, make the flow cleaner, have fewer clicks, and clean up information architecture... and other wonderful magic they do.

Do you know how many people care about how pretty things look when using your product? Maybe 1%. In their busy work, they are paying for your product so that when they open it they can do what the product does quickly and get back to work, nobody cares if your product looks all fancy if it doesn't do the one thing they want quickly. If it frustrates them, they swear at it and close the app.

References and further reading

• Engineering desing at Thinkmill
• Launch notes