During the nascent stages of my company's design system, my team had a debate about the right type of edit view for our users. There were a couple of different perspectives and no one willing to compromise on their position. I advocated for the plain pop-up modal across our product on the back of my keep-it-simple campaign while a colleague pushed for inline edits as a way to mimic reality for our users in our data heavy interface. To break the stalemate, we reluctantly took the next few days to design both prototypes and test it.

The usability test resulted in a tie. The users were able to complete their tasks on both designs. The difference, from a UX perspective, was negligible. It didn’t matter.

Both perspectives were well-intentioned and justified but it was not a debate about UX like we were claiming. If I’m honest, I may have let my designer’s ego get in the way. What should have been a 30-minute discussion was stretched out over three days - three days that could have been spent on designing for the next sprint or vision-casting for the ideal state of the product. I had a few more of these situations since then and the outcome has been the same. It didn’t matter. Of course, the testing and learning are exemplary of the UX spirit but experimentation can be expensive and counter-productive if you’re not wise about it.

I’ve since gotten much more conscientious about guarding the UX principles and not dogmatizing every pixel of my designs. More often, I’ve been proposing a set of possible design solutions then leading discussions around the pros and cons of each option as well as the essence of how each option solves the problem. I’ve found that his approach invites better cross collateral idea-share, more constructive design critiques and enhanced collaboration. It frees me from the need to defend my work and lets me operate more as a consultant, helping guide the team towards better UX decisions. You’re admitting that there may be multiple solutions to a problem and your design, exactly as you created it, may not be the right one…and that’s okay because it’s about the users, the teamwork and the process.