Your client demands design changes that hurt functionality. How will you navigate this challenging situation?

The human-centered design process, encompassing research, ideation, prototyping, and testing, provides a structured approach to collaboration, iteration, and validation without excessive time and resources. Implementing it before development can significantly reduce time and costs. When clients / teams see a prototype that aligns with their business or vision, they gain a deeper understanding and provide more meaningful feedback and sometimes not :), but highlighting HCD’s true value. Great!! As a lead designer who sees design as innovation, your role is to bring rationality when requests diverge from project goals. Clear processes and the right tools help balance form and function, assess impact while prioritizing the end user's needs.

Complete an Impact Analysis to prove or disprove your assumption that the design change will have a negative impact. If found to be true, have the courageous conversation with the client to inform them of the negative impact your analysis shows the requested change will have. This conversation may uncover facts not considered before. Ultimately, you do what the client decides no matter if you feel that it will have a negative impact.

Assess the impact of design changes on functionality. Carefully analyze how proposed alterations affect user experience and core objectives, including potential disruptions to workflow or usability issues. With a clear understanding of these implications, you can effectively communicate concerns to the client, providing concrete examples to illustrate the potential drawbacks.

1. Analyze Impact: Assess how the changes affect performance, user experience, or workflow. 2. Communicate Clearly: Present concrete examples and data showing the negative effects. 3. Offer Alternatives: Suggest design options that balance aesthetics and functionality. 4. Align with Goals: Emphasize how maintaining functionality supports business objectives. 5. Collaborate: Work with the client to find a solution that satisfies both design and usability needs.

-es muy bueno apoyarse con la evaluacion de impacto economico referente al performance que tiene relacionado en cuanto a dilatacion en procesamiento de informacion o en consecuencia cuotas de consumo de recursos cloud en caso de ser necesario. Aunque en la arquitectura debe siempre de tenerse un equilibrio entre la funcion y el diseño, siempre debe de preponderar la funcionalidad ya que es el pilar donde se apoyo el proceso de negocio.

Initiate an open dialogue with your client. Explain the potential issues of design changes in terms they understand, linking them to their goals for the application. Listen to their perspective and show empathy, aiming for a collaborative approach to find a balance between their design preferences and the application's functionality.

Let's review the situation once more. We have to take into account, who are users involved. Why the change is needed. What impact it will have on functionality and weather or not we have technology in place to support it.

At times like this, the most prudent way is to present a ADR (Architecture Design Record) document. ADR is a structured document that captures the context, options considered (with pros and cons), the chosen option, rationale for the decision being made. This will help in considering different options, open alternatives for discussion, implement transparency by listing down the pros and cons.

Here is a table where we've tried to map different options for discussions including benefits and drawbacks for the aforementioned.

One of the approaches is to focus the discussion with client on the outcome. What is that they want to achieve? For example, is the demand to change the design coming because of operational needs, scale requirements, or optimizing resources. Getting to that level of clarity would enable the team to focus on possible options that might minimize the impact to the functionality. With this approach, client might also have an open mind because their objectives are met.

When making a decision it is important to look at the picture not only in a short term but also consider long lasting consequences.

Feedback is important part of the process. Nevertheless there can be situations where we need to oppose your viewpoint, in order to ensure the best quality possible.

In most of the cases where client doesn't want to accept alternatives - something in between can be agreed, for example taking a time for an experiment to have some quantitative data for another round of discussion.