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I'm Jamal, and this website contains some of my collected thoughts and work stories from over 10 years of working in the Software Design Industry.
Tiago Cabaco, VP Design (Uber, Facebook)
Every product I work on has to solve three fundamental questions:
What people problem are we solving?
Framing up the problems we're solving as people problems aligns our work with the communities we serve.
How do we know if this is a real problem?
What research or data do we have that confirms that this is a real problem that is hurting customers and hurting the business.
How will we know we've solved the problem?
In order to know we've solved the problem, we need to define what success looks like and how we will measure it.
I like to involve all the key people in a project early and get information and feedback often. Modern design, in my view, isn’t King Designer pulling grand ideas out of the ether. Design is more like a puzzle that we are all trying to solve together, and the designer facilitates and synthesizes the information into a potential vision.
In my experience, the only thing that non-designers really understand is a prototype. As soon as you show people a prototype, you have those “aha” moments where it really starts clicking in their minds what we’re trying to accomplish, and the discussions move forward at lightning speed.
Nothing is more important than measuring the outcome of your work. How will you otherwise know if you've solved the problem? Proper measurement creates accountability and focus in an organization. But measuring the right things requires a lot of deep thought and alignment.
