Chapter 15 – The Best Isn’t Always the Best

Be stubborn on vision but flexible on details.
~Jeff Bezos

You will sometimes know deep in your heart, guided by all the empathy and experience you have, that a particular design decision is the “right” one. You will be convinced to fight for it with every fiber of your being, to “win” for the sake of the user and all that is good in design.

However, there will be many occasions where the “best” answer is not the “right” one. Learning the difference can be a critical skill in order for a designer to become indispensable.

Design does not exist in a vacuum (see chapter 2, Design Is a Service) and cannot be a sole decision-maker for a business. Rather, it’s one of many participants in a push-pull with all other aspects of the business. A designer should apply their empathy and ability to problem-solve toward the decisions that need to be made and know when to fight and when to compromise.

Despite every available indicator from the design perspective showing a particular path is the correct one, there are numerous other factors in play that must be accounted for:

• Available resources
• Timeline
• Company goals
• Organizational considerations

An example: Through your creativity, research, and user testing, Solution A is far and away the best for the users and the product. However, the difficulty in implementing Solution A is immense and will be felt across the company. The developers would need to rearchitect much of the code base, the customer managers would need to educate clients about the change to what they already know, and the sales organization would need to restructure how they promote the cost/benefit to the users.

From a pure design standpoint, Solution A is clearly the “best” answer, but in the context of the rest of the company, it is far too disruptive and costly to undertake. The best solution, therefore, is not the best solution.

Here are some circumstances where you will need to reconsider the “best” answer:

• Takes too long
• Upsets current users
• Will lose the company money
• Investors or stakeholders dislike it
• It conflicts with a majority of the clients’ uses

You are an advocate for the user, but you are also a teammate and a member of the company. Your design needs to truly serve everyone, not just the end user (as counterintuitive as that may seem).

A designer who realizes this and is able to chart out their work accordingly increases their value tremendously. As opposed to being a stickler for pure design theory and throwing wrenches into business planning, you are able to comprehend the business, development, and user needs and merge them into win-win-wins. You become known as a true architect of design solutions and will be sought out by all parties who know you justly consider all facets in your work.

This does not need to be a zero-sum game. If a solution can’t be implemented in full, there’s no need to set it on fire and leave the building. Instead, a tactic you can employ to provide immense value is to work with stakeholders on a long-term plan. If a proposed design solution clearly brings immense value but at too great an immediate cost, you can help produce a path to achieve it. Ask: What interim steps over the coming year(s) can we take to arrive at the best solution?

All of this is not to say we designers should not fight for strong solutions through our work. We need to be on guard from rejections purely from comfort (or laziness) rather than honest pragmatism or business intelligence.

But what this does espouse is a whole-company view rather than simply a design-centric one. Again, as design is in servitude to the business, sales, developers, and customer, you need to broaden your acceptance criteria for what is truly the best solution for all stakeholders, not just what the designer thinks is best.

The best is not always the best.

What I’m Not Saying

• Don’t push for great design solutions if they’re hard.
• If it’s difficult, then you should dilute your design.
• Allow short-sighted business decisions to rule your work.
• Have no standards with regard to your output.

What I Am Saying

• Consider all aspects of the business when coming up with solutions.
• Be a central point between sales, business, and engineering and serve them all.
• Be flexible with your solutions when presented with reasonable challenges from other parties.
• The greatest designs will not always be the greatest solution for the business.