Ugo, a seasoned digital product designer, has revealed his challenges while designing products and how he tackles them. With over seven years of experience in designing products across the fintech, e-commerce, banking, Med-tech, utilities, and charity industries, Ugo’s area of focus is on visual identity development, interaction design, cross-platform deployment, low/no code design, and community development. In a recent interview, Ugo talked about how he got started as a freelance product designer and the challenges he encounters while working with clients.
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Ugo credits his introduction to product design to a magazine design project he did for his fellowship while still in school. The quality of his work stood out, and he started receiving requests for designs from other fellowships. Through these requests, he was able to save enough to purchase his first laptop. A few years later, he began working at a startup digital marketing agency as a designer. Still, when the company’s main designer resigned, Ugo was forced to become one of the agency’s main designers, working for about six years through his school and post-university days.

In a recent interview, Ugo shared some challenges product designers face and how he tackles them. According to Ugo, product designers face a lot of challenges. However, he emphasised these three.

Adapting Product Vision
Adapting a project vision can be extremely difficult for product designers. We occasionally encounter aspects of the project that contradicts our established visions at some point in the project, making it challenging to modify the product vision. Many designers would rather disregard this new understanding, explain away the contradictions, or defend continuing in the original direction by saying, “we need to launch this.” I believe responses like these are deeply rooted in vulnerability because the false notion that our worth lies in our knowledge and level of control is the root of this fear. No one wants to make mistakes, fail, look foolish or shortsighted, etc.
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To tackle this challenge, I always keep in mind that, despite my perceptions or predefined vision for the project, I do not know everything. So instead of fighting the product vision, I take it upon myself to gain more insight, understand it and adjust accordingly.

Balancing Client Needs & Personal Design Preferences
Most designers will agree that in our work as designers, we frequently have particular preferences and a sense of style. However, clients always have their peculiar needs, which may sometimes be totally different from our design style. Failing to find a balance often births unsatisfied clients and a somewhat happy designer, but of what use is your visually appealing design that is in line with your design preference if it doesn’t satisfy your client’s needs?

I think it’s fair to say that I was guilty of this when I first got into the industry. Fortunately, I realised early enough that my clients were not after my beautiful design but a functional product that ticked all their boxes. I leaned towards collaborating more with them to understand their needs, map out a possible way of integrating my design preference (only when necessary) and delivering the product they designed.

Design Handoff to Developers
I can’t count the number of times I’ve thought about how much simpler my life would be if I could sit next to the developers and explain why there needs to be more white space between two cards or why the header and sub-header texts should be various shades of green.
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As a designer, your design work is far from finished when your client approves your design. The execution loop only gets started at this point. Getting the design developed precisely as you intended becomes a new challenge.

I always go the extra mile to clearly explain UI interactions, responsive layout and different states for each case. This way, I don’t have to worry much about the outcome. I also work with developers to build a component library so that the same specs can be re-used for different contexts without fail, especially when working on recurring projects.

Ugo’s experience and insights into overcoming challenges in product design make him a sought-after designer and mentor. As he continues to thrive in his career, he seeks to educate clients on the intricacies of product design and the effort required to build a successful product.
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