Working With Designers

Shilpi Roongta, Senior Product Manager, XO Group

Shilpi provides a high-level overview of how roles & responsibilities are split between product and design and common collaboration challenges that occur.

Jens-Fabian Goetzmann, Head of Product, 8fit

Jens-Fabian provides 7 tips for how to work effectively with designers: 1. Agree on responsibilities and ways of working 2. Start with why 3. Focus on the user, educate about the business 4. Define the problem before the solution 5. Provide space for creative chaos 6. Be crystal clear about expectations 7. Make only promises you can keep

Julie Zhuo, VP Product Design, Facebook

Julie uses experience as both a designer and a PM to provide tips on how to work with designer: • Understand the strengths of the designer you're working with, across visual design, interaction design, and product design • Map the scope of the design problem to the experience level of the designer • The more time a designer spends with other designers, the better the work (and the designer) • A lot of what designers value and strive for in their work is hard to measure • The most direct path to a designer’s heart is to care about the details

Jess Eddy, Product Design Lead, Cluey Learning

Jess provides collaboration tips on how to explain problems, when to use mockups, how to write requirements for designers, and how to advocate for user experience goals.

Mike Chen, Product Design Lead, ShopBack

Mike provides the overall product development collaboration process between PMs and designers at Zendesk, with a detailed dive into discovery, development, validation, and rollout.