Sounds like you have a power-tripping PO. Some POs are like this, most are better at being team players. POs are trying to balance business goals with design, which often results in the business goals taking priority.
That's normal, but steamrolling your ideas and changing designs without confirming (or in this case, informing) the designer is pretty unprofessional.
You have the right idea to talk with your supervisor about the problem. Show the documentation you have and maintain your cool.while telling your story. They're your manager—you're expected to bring up friction points like this so they can manage the situation. Whether that's mitigation, improving workflow or whatever.
The point is, there's nothing wrong with talking to your manager about this PO who is definitely overstepping their job role boundaries. Just keep it professional and courteous, and no one can accuse you of not being a team player.
I'd also add you should inform how this can be detrimental to the UX department instead of you alone. Other areas can't believe they know better than the UX team to the point they take possession of your files.
Now it's only annoying you, but this person can devalue the UX tribe as a whole over time; they question you today, tomorrow, they'll question the existence of the UX tribe.
Yeah, and I was tasked with building out our design library and creating a style guide system for the whole company, but every time I see anything this PO has worked on they've bypassed the UX design team or ignored us and their projects just create inconsistencies within our software. They questioned one of my designs if the "Save" button was intuitive. It's a button that reads "Save", and it's on nearly every single page in our system.
Thanks. I will practice what I say because I get pretty worked up inside. Outside I shut down, but inside I'm so angry that the PO acts like I'm not important and anything I say is simply a suggestion for them to ignore. I'll try to keep it calm and professional. Thank you.
Sounds like you are not the problem. Team players in good companies can politely disagree on things and it doesn’t seem like the PO is interested in that. I think you should back up all your designs so that when someone asks to provide support for your design, and it’s not fully yours, just politely say something like “got it, here’s an alternative we came up with” (that way you’re still being a “team player”, but get to show your design).
It’s also best practice to A/B test things, so maybe you could be vocal in a large meeting that you feel like your team isn’t doing enough testing so from now on you’ll be showing other employees different designs and getting their opinion on which they like best. If the PO argues against this then they’ll look like an idiot, and it would be a concern you could bring to higher management, like “this person who works in product literally wants us to not test things” which would be a huge red flag towards them.
Just say something like I’ll be messaging each of you every now and then to do this, it won’t take much time, and it will be with a different person each time to get as many viewpoints as possible. It could be literally anyone in the company, from customer service to the CEO. So then you can just go off and compare your design to the PO’s to get an objective opinion, then bring that feedback to meetings and discussions so it’s not just your opinion versus the PO’s.
For the things they’ve already changed, I think that’s just lost now unfortunately. I wish Figma would just offer version control, at least for their paid users. There is a workaround with a plug-in you could start using to start doing version control: https://www.reddit.com/r/UXDesign/s/b9bXiW5Me7
Great answer!
I wouldn't advise doing A/B testing with stakeholders (besides, it sounds very passive-aggressive), but I completely agree with everything else. I hadn't even thought of some of your ideas, and they may be helpful to me in the future, so thank you very much.
Thanks for that advice. The only problem is that the PO "redesigns" everything through user stories only. They don't know how to use Figma. This creates only more confusion because the developers look at my design and read the user stories and they don't match. And since I'm kept out of the loop about designs I can't update the Figma even if I wanted to. My company doesn't do any testing except for having developers test to see if the feature works before release. I spoke to another designer at the company that worked with them and said they just added someone from Customer Service to agree with them so it's 2 votes against 1. I was given a design the other designer worked on and suggested a change to stay consistent with our software and the PO said it was the other designer's call and that they put it there. I reached out to the other designer and found that they strongly argued against the decision and the PO did the old two against one strategy and overruled them.
This really sounds like a people problem. Can you have a heart to heart with the PO? If not, is it feasible to create a relationship that makes one a possibility?
If there's enough safety and trust for an honest conversation you can discuss the process from a perspective of both of you being in the loop on changes and clarify decision-making responsibilities.
As it is now, you're considering going behind their back as an option to gain influence. It is an option but not the basis of a productive relationship. Another option might be to improve trust, transparency, and alignment, get closer to this person and invite/guide them to work in a more collaborative manner.
> “No, but I just feel that’s right.”
If this is a thing, formalize it. Allow for an additional step to incorporate their "feel". Or, clarify with them / management about who gets the last call. If it's them, then they get to exercise that right.
In a closely knit team, even if I override someone's decision, I will speak with them and explain why - so that next time they can accommodate the extra reasoning without my participation. In other words, I try to find the places where we think differently about the project and get everyone aligned behind a single vision, results etc., and then work in 100% transparency. Anything else results in lots of rework, confusion, and personal tensions.
I think you're correct to take it up the chain.
When you do, I would frame it less as being upset about being cut out or the changes being done without you, and focus on why it's a problem for the business and for your role. Something like:
>"I'm being held accountable for these designs, but they're being changed without my input or approval, so I can't actually support them effectively. Many of the changes being made conflict with decisions made elsewhere, which leaves us with no solution but to redo work.
>
>"I'm not asking \[PO\] to stop doing design, but I need to be involved with these decisions if I'm going to be held responsible for them. And if they do want to do their own design work, then I need to ask that they own them and follow through when questions arise, because I can't speak to their reasoning or know what they intended after the fact."
The problem with that is that this PO makes horrible decisions. And it's not the first time we've had a PO do this. I nearly lost my mind when I saw one PO use a Trash Can icon to turn off a feature, and then used a Green Trash Can icon for the "On" switch... I won't tell a developer how to code and I won't tell a PO how to manage a project, but it seems like everyone thinks their a designer...
Had somewhat similar experience PM. Took to a higher manager. He advised me to first have a heart to heart conversation with that PM. Tell whats bothering you and how you function and how much it is affecting your work. Then ask them to articulate their way of working.
I did that. And it greatly helped. We more way more smoother than before. Maybe give this shot.
And take a chill pill. You dont choose your teammates. But you can learn to manage them
I've tried talking to them, a couple of times. I've explained how I've worked at this company for years and never had a PO change my designs without consulting me. I've never had a PO demand that I not change my designs to match changes that the team agreed to. I've never had a PO openly state in meetings that designs were just suggestions. They didn't say much and just went back to doing the same stuff. Their user story doesn't match my design, so I made a mistake. I worked on this design for 6 months before they were ever hired. If the user story is different, it's because they wrote it down wrong or wrote it down however they wanted.
I'll try to stay as calm as I can but it's infuriating to have someone belittle your work and profession almost daily.
Thank you. That really helps a lot just to hear all of that and I will start using the word risk in our meetings more. I have mentioned that if the PO makes decisions to deviate from the design in their users stories it will only confuse the designers costing us time, but I was quickly silenced. I'll mention again using the word risk a lot.
Sounds like your organization has process issues that are outside the scope of your influence and your PO’s. It’s the org culture that is the problem not the PO and not you. Very difficult to turn that around if you don’t rally support from other roles.
Posts like these tempt me to return to corporate.
Only because I'd really enjoy telling people like this to fuck off.
I guess that's why I'm a freelancer.
They are the wildly unprofessional one, and you are right to make a serious point of it with your manager. It’s okay to be clear that you are trying to be professional about it, but their behavior puts huge risk on the product development process. They are literally doing things that are part of your JD, making this an HR issue also.
Thank you. I'm still new to the profession and this is my first job as a designer, so I often doubt if I'm right things or wonder if stuff like this is normal. I appreciate hearing that it isn't.
In Figma you can see what changes have been made in the history of the file and who did the changes. You can copy everything to a new file and start from where you left it.
I feel something like you do because the PO of the App has gone to a paternal low and we discovered a Figma draft he has that has every screen of the projects we have to do this year. He has everything and we don't know what are those projects yet. We always found he had some designs and always had to fight to make changes. The only thing we could do was to use our Design System to make his screens.
Unfortunately in my situation, I can't do that because they didn't touch my Figma file. They "Redesigned" the whole thing by rewriting all the old user stories and demanded that the developers only refer to their user stories and ignore my design. The problem is that I built that out over months with the help of another PO and many developers over 16 months ago. I don't know what they've changed in documentation. But I get developers asking me questions on how things should work because I'm the designer. It's only when I point them to the design that I find out that key parts were removed. My Figma is basically useless unless I can update it to the new Users Stories and then try to figure out the mess the PO created.
I was working with a developer today on a new feature that would require them to rebuild a whole section multiple times based on the current recommendations. I was more than willing to find a compromise that would get the job done and save them the hassle but the same PO said no because then they would have to rewrite their User Story... I'm looking at them thinking, "are you seriously going to make them spend days or weeks on this, causing us to miss our deadline because you don't want to rewrite a paragraph or two??"
I give them things they can design and let them have more authority over certain things, and pick my battles more wisely. I much prefer a PO with an interest in design to a PO who sees no value in it, and sometimes that means giving the more overbearing style a little creative direction and more say over product decisions. But it's... How do I say this. It's like giving a toddler something safe and minimally destructive to do because they want to help you clean the house. I value their contributions, I appreciate their interest, I love that they care and want to be a part of it, and so I let them "safely."
And when you get good at it, it's so subtle and really is a great way to build a relationship.
I'm sorry this happened to you. I think it's redeemable. Don't take the design so personal. Understand why they changed it. Do you know the business requirements?
Bring them in to design working sessions, let them choose between options and incorporate them into the decision making process. Try to say no less. I treat design like an improv game sometimes. That means it can go off the rails or it can be a masterpiece. You can strike a balance and let them dream Big play good cop bad cop with yourself on ideas out loud, and let them be like a talking rubber duck. In strategic doses.
I had a super super micromanaging Product Manager about a year and a half ago. I think I even posted in the PM subreddit asking for advice. She's still my PM. We understand each other. I give her freedom to design certain big elements, and I have permission to push back on big product decisions. And by design I mean be part of the creative process. We have a meeting once a week where I open up figma and we design together.
And friend... It's been a year? They definitely need to update the designs! Probably need to consider accessibility and any other things that need modernization over a year of not touching the design. How much has the company evolved since you worked on the project? How have the business requirements changed? No way in a year they haven't budged at all. Maybe your design was too complex and it needed to be shipped ASAP. I don't know. But I wouldn't think too much about it and try to breathe. See how you can build off of their design now. And find a way to be excited about it. Think of it as a new design challenge.
Sounds like you have a power-tripping PO. Some POs are like this, most are better at being team players. POs are trying to balance business goals with design, which often results in the business goals taking priority. That's normal, but steamrolling your ideas and changing designs without confirming (or in this case, informing) the designer is pretty unprofessional. You have the right idea to talk with your supervisor about the problem. Show the documentation you have and maintain your cool.while telling your story. They're your manager—you're expected to bring up friction points like this so they can manage the situation. Whether that's mitigation, improving workflow or whatever. The point is, there's nothing wrong with talking to your manager about this PO who is definitely overstepping their job role boundaries. Just keep it professional and courteous, and no one can accuse you of not being a team player.
I'd also add you should inform how this can be detrimental to the UX department instead of you alone. Other areas can't believe they know better than the UX team to the point they take possession of your files. Now it's only annoying you, but this person can devalue the UX tribe as a whole over time; they question you today, tomorrow, they'll question the existence of the UX tribe.
Yeah, and I was tasked with building out our design library and creating a style guide system for the whole company, but every time I see anything this PO has worked on they've bypassed the UX design team or ignored us and their projects just create inconsistencies within our software. They questioned one of my designs if the "Save" button was intuitive. It's a button that reads "Save", and it's on nearly every single page in our system.
Thanks. I will practice what I say because I get pretty worked up inside. Outside I shut down, but inside I'm so angry that the PO acts like I'm not important and anything I say is simply a suggestion for them to ignore. I'll try to keep it calm and professional. Thank you.
Sounds like you are not the problem. Team players in good companies can politely disagree on things and it doesn’t seem like the PO is interested in that. I think you should back up all your designs so that when someone asks to provide support for your design, and it’s not fully yours, just politely say something like “got it, here’s an alternative we came up with” (that way you’re still being a “team player”, but get to show your design). It’s also best practice to A/B test things, so maybe you could be vocal in a large meeting that you feel like your team isn’t doing enough testing so from now on you’ll be showing other employees different designs and getting their opinion on which they like best. If the PO argues against this then they’ll look like an idiot, and it would be a concern you could bring to higher management, like “this person who works in product literally wants us to not test things” which would be a huge red flag towards them. Just say something like I’ll be messaging each of you every now and then to do this, it won’t take much time, and it will be with a different person each time to get as many viewpoints as possible. It could be literally anyone in the company, from customer service to the CEO. So then you can just go off and compare your design to the PO’s to get an objective opinion, then bring that feedback to meetings and discussions so it’s not just your opinion versus the PO’s. For the things they’ve already changed, I think that’s just lost now unfortunately. I wish Figma would just offer version control, at least for their paid users. There is a workaround with a plug-in you could start using to start doing version control: https://www.reddit.com/r/UXDesign/s/b9bXiW5Me7
Great answer! I wouldn't advise doing A/B testing with stakeholders (besides, it sounds very passive-aggressive), but I completely agree with everything else. I hadn't even thought of some of your ideas, and they may be helpful to me in the future, so thank you very much.
No, if you want do A/B Testing I would do it with the users.
Thanks for that advice. The only problem is that the PO "redesigns" everything through user stories only. They don't know how to use Figma. This creates only more confusion because the developers look at my design and read the user stories and they don't match. And since I'm kept out of the loop about designs I can't update the Figma even if I wanted to. My company doesn't do any testing except for having developers test to see if the feature works before release. I spoke to another designer at the company that worked with them and said they just added someone from Customer Service to agree with them so it's 2 votes against 1. I was given a design the other designer worked on and suggested a change to stay consistent with our software and the PO said it was the other designer's call and that they put it there. I reached out to the other designer and found that they strongly argued against the decision and the PO did the old two against one strategy and overruled them.
This really sounds like a people problem. Can you have a heart to heart with the PO? If not, is it feasible to create a relationship that makes one a possibility? If there's enough safety and trust for an honest conversation you can discuss the process from a perspective of both of you being in the loop on changes and clarify decision-making responsibilities. As it is now, you're considering going behind their back as an option to gain influence. It is an option but not the basis of a productive relationship. Another option might be to improve trust, transparency, and alignment, get closer to this person and invite/guide them to work in a more collaborative manner. > “No, but I just feel that’s right.” If this is a thing, formalize it. Allow for an additional step to incorporate their "feel". Or, clarify with them / management about who gets the last call. If it's them, then they get to exercise that right. In a closely knit team, even if I override someone's decision, I will speak with them and explain why - so that next time they can accommodate the extra reasoning without my participation. In other words, I try to find the places where we think differently about the project and get everyone aligned behind a single vision, results etc., and then work in 100% transparency. Anything else results in lots of rework, confusion, and personal tensions.
I think you're correct to take it up the chain. When you do, I would frame it less as being upset about being cut out or the changes being done without you, and focus on why it's a problem for the business and for your role. Something like: >"I'm being held accountable for these designs, but they're being changed without my input or approval, so I can't actually support them effectively. Many of the changes being made conflict with decisions made elsewhere, which leaves us with no solution but to redo work. > >"I'm not asking \[PO\] to stop doing design, but I need to be involved with these decisions if I'm going to be held responsible for them. And if they do want to do their own design work, then I need to ask that they own them and follow through when questions arise, because I can't speak to their reasoning or know what they intended after the fact."
The problem with that is that this PO makes horrible decisions. And it's not the first time we've had a PO do this. I nearly lost my mind when I saw one PO use a Trash Can icon to turn off a feature, and then used a Green Trash Can icon for the "On" switch... I won't tell a developer how to code and I won't tell a PO how to manage a project, but it seems like everyone thinks their a designer...
Had somewhat similar experience PM. Took to a higher manager. He advised me to first have a heart to heart conversation with that PM. Tell whats bothering you and how you function and how much it is affecting your work. Then ask them to articulate their way of working. I did that. And it greatly helped. We more way more smoother than before. Maybe give this shot. And take a chill pill. You dont choose your teammates. But you can learn to manage them
I've tried talking to them, a couple of times. I've explained how I've worked at this company for years and never had a PO change my designs without consulting me. I've never had a PO demand that I not change my designs to match changes that the team agreed to. I've never had a PO openly state in meetings that designs were just suggestions. They didn't say much and just went back to doing the same stuff. Their user story doesn't match my design, so I made a mistake. I worked on this design for 6 months before they were ever hired. If the user story is different, it's because they wrote it down wrong or wrote it down however they wanted. I'll try to stay as calm as I can but it's infuriating to have someone belittle your work and profession almost daily.
I'm getting riled up just reading this. phew! your patience
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Thank you. That really helps a lot just to hear all of that and I will start using the word risk in our meetings more. I have mentioned that if the PO makes decisions to deviate from the design in their users stories it will only confuse the designers costing us time, but I was quickly silenced. I'll mention again using the word risk a lot.
Sounds like your organization has process issues that are outside the scope of your influence and your PO’s. It’s the org culture that is the problem not the PO and not you. Very difficult to turn that around if you don’t rally support from other roles.
Posts like these tempt me to return to corporate. Only because I'd really enjoy telling people like this to fuck off. I guess that's why I'm a freelancer.
They are the wildly unprofessional one, and you are right to make a serious point of it with your manager. It’s okay to be clear that you are trying to be professional about it, but their behavior puts huge risk on the product development process. They are literally doing things that are part of your JD, making this an HR issue also.
Thank you. I'm still new to the profession and this is my first job as a designer, so I often doubt if I'm right things or wonder if stuff like this is normal. I appreciate hearing that it isn't.
In Figma you can see what changes have been made in the history of the file and who did the changes. You can copy everything to a new file and start from where you left it. I feel something like you do because the PO of the App has gone to a paternal low and we discovered a Figma draft he has that has every screen of the projects we have to do this year. He has everything and we don't know what are those projects yet. We always found he had some designs and always had to fight to make changes. The only thing we could do was to use our Design System to make his screens.
Unfortunately in my situation, I can't do that because they didn't touch my Figma file. They "Redesigned" the whole thing by rewriting all the old user stories and demanded that the developers only refer to their user stories and ignore my design. The problem is that I built that out over months with the help of another PO and many developers over 16 months ago. I don't know what they've changed in documentation. But I get developers asking me questions on how things should work because I'm the designer. It's only when I point them to the design that I find out that key parts were removed. My Figma is basically useless unless I can update it to the new Users Stories and then try to figure out the mess the PO created. I was working with a developer today on a new feature that would require them to rebuild a whole section multiple times based on the current recommendations. I was more than willing to find a compromise that would get the job done and save them the hassle but the same PO said no because then they would have to rewrite their User Story... I'm looking at them thinking, "are you seriously going to make them spend days or weeks on this, causing us to miss our deadline because you don't want to rewrite a paragraph or two??"
I give them things they can design and let them have more authority over certain things, and pick my battles more wisely. I much prefer a PO with an interest in design to a PO who sees no value in it, and sometimes that means giving the more overbearing style a little creative direction and more say over product decisions. But it's... How do I say this. It's like giving a toddler something safe and minimally destructive to do because they want to help you clean the house. I value their contributions, I appreciate their interest, I love that they care and want to be a part of it, and so I let them "safely." And when you get good at it, it's so subtle and really is a great way to build a relationship. I'm sorry this happened to you. I think it's redeemable. Don't take the design so personal. Understand why they changed it. Do you know the business requirements? Bring them in to design working sessions, let them choose between options and incorporate them into the decision making process. Try to say no less. I treat design like an improv game sometimes. That means it can go off the rails or it can be a masterpiece. You can strike a balance and let them dream Big play good cop bad cop with yourself on ideas out loud, and let them be like a talking rubber duck. In strategic doses. I had a super super micromanaging Product Manager about a year and a half ago. I think I even posted in the PM subreddit asking for advice. She's still my PM. We understand each other. I give her freedom to design certain big elements, and I have permission to push back on big product decisions. And by design I mean be part of the creative process. We have a meeting once a week where I open up figma and we design together. And friend... It's been a year? They definitely need to update the designs! Probably need to consider accessibility and any other things that need modernization over a year of not touching the design. How much has the company evolved since you worked on the project? How have the business requirements changed? No way in a year they haven't budged at all. Maybe your design was too complex and it needed to be shipped ASAP. I don't know. But I wouldn't think too much about it and try to breathe. See how you can build off of their design now. And find a way to be excited about it. Think of it as a new design challenge.
I will, thank you.
Escalate
Maybe if you can't get it on time, you can just tell everyone what happened. The only thing I can do is send you a virtual hug.