How to make design decisions with many people?

Designing software with teams takes in a lot of opinions.

What’s the best solution to the problem? Should we listen to the designer, to the developer, or the CEO?

How do we remove bias from the roadmap and design decisions at work?

In this article, I will simplify how you can make better design decisions with your team!

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1) Swap Meetings into Workshops

Instead of having only the loud people in your team voice their ideas, give everyone a chance.

The best design ideas can come from the most random people.

To start, — run the Lightning Decision Jam by Aj & Smart.

The benefits:

🔹 All People will submit ideas.

🔹 The team will vote anonymously — on everything.

🔹 The final decision-maker will sign-off

🔹 The team will be in constant alignment.

🔹 Everyone will feel like an innovation hero.

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2) Vote. Vote Vote.

No, not on November 3rd — I mean every day.

Make sending polls and voting on design decisions a habit in your teams.

This will make people feel:

🔹 Included

🔹 Heard

🔹 Valued

🔹 Fair

Whenever you meet at a decision fork, create a quick vote with the options on the table. With time, your team will learn how to make decisions out of unity and alignment.

Slack and Teams have great voting/poll add-ons to use.

See Polly: https://www.polly.ai/

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3) Use data to back decisions.

Everyone can guess, but only data can tell the raw truth.

When debating a new design decision, use the following data sources to help guide you and your team:

🔹 App recordings

🔹 Google analytics usage data

🔹 Online user Surveys

🔹 Feedback Forums

These are significant data pools to help you out with this!

Tools:

https://www.hotjar.com/

https://www.fullstory.com/

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4) User testing.

Designing in a box feels very cozy.

Your ideas feel so incredible.

It’s time to take your fantasies to the people who will use it.

It’s straightforward:

🔹 Test the main functions with five users

🔹 Prepare open-ended questions for the testers.

🔹 Record and take notes of the testing sessions

🔹 Implement the necessary changes based on the testing

🔹 Test it once again!

Tools to use for user testing:

https://www.userfeel.com/

https://maze.design/

https://userbrain.net/

https://www.usertesting.com/

If you need help with this, please DM me.

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5) Invite innovation.

People will only innovate when you permit them.

You might have brilliant people in your office, but they are quiet!

You need to continually ask them to come forward with their ideas and innovation.

Have weekly or monthly sessions that emphasize this.

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I hope this article helps you make better design decisions with your team.

PS, you can use these techniques to make other business decisions with your team.

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Book a free UX Discovery call here.

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