How do I convince someone to build what I've designed?

I’ll start with the short answer: you can’t.

But let’s talk about it. Imagine you’re a designer on a product, and you have spent a lot of time designing a great feature, which you know is elegant and your users will love. All you have to do it get it built!

But then you go to the rest of the team: product managers, engineers, etc, and show them your design. You may even get a “yes, that’s great,” but it’s followed up with “but we can’t do it. Maybe in V2. But not in the MVP”.

What’s going on? Can’t they see this is the best design? They must not care about the user!

This is a common scenario. And it can be really frustrating. But don’t let it get you down.

What are some of the reasons your design might not be built?

• The Product Manager has other priorities on their plate, perhaps tied to quarterly goals. Does your design help them meet their goals?

• The team may not know how long it will take to build your feature, and assume they won’t have the time, or possibly the expertise. They have a finite amount of resources and lots of other things that are already on the roadmap.

• They like the feature, but they’re not sure what the full benefit is.

What can you do?

• Understand more about their needs. What do they want to accomplish? Is there a way you can help them?

• Ask them for an estimate. Requiring an engineering team to go through this exercise may either (a) help them realize it’s actually more doable than they thought or (b) give you more clarity as to why it’s so complex. Ideally this will be a standard part of a project lifecycle.

• Outline the benefits that are measurable, not just “it’s a better design” or “users will be less frustrated”. Will it increase whatever metrics are important for your team, like CSAT, or usage? Can you run a usability study comparing an old and new design to show higher satisfaction scores or completion rates?

• Work on your storytelling. You may clearly see why the design is great, but that doesn’t mean it’s obvious to anyone else.

• Break it down into smaller wins. Is there an initial step that would still bring benefit to the user?

These methods won’t always work, but the better you can understand where other people are coming from, the easier it is to understand where you’re coming from.

Just like conversation design itself, understanding what motivates humans and using good communication helps in product development, too.