Expand Your Influence: 6 Communication Techniques Designers Can Use to Earn Trust

Trust-Building Tactics

In my experience, successful design influencers have developed several nuanced strategies that help them have greater impact, get more acceptance of their advice, and even be sought out earlier in the development process.

Help, Don’t Criticize

As critical thinkers and evaluators, UX professionals’ training teaches them to look for faults in a system and fix them. For example, the intent of heuristic reviews and usability tests is largely to find problems. But leading with criticisms and pointing out problems is a poor way of establishing trust with your collaborators. Demonstrate to them that you want your perspective and ideas to help them achieve their goals, by explicitly highlighting those goals in your feedback.

• Instead of saying: “Ummm, this presentation for the CEO is getting too long, and I don’t think it will work.”
• Try saying: “I know this CEO meeting is important. The more we can make our presentation concise and visual and keep it focused on the important topics, the better off we’ll be. What can I do to help with its focus?”

Use Language That Encourages Dialogue

Based on our role as designers, we often feel that we should be the authority who makes design decisions. However, if we attempt to force our choices on colleagues, using language that doesn’t give our colleagues any room for discussion, they may feel shut out. Sometimes, in our zeal to get design decisions right and showcase our expertise, we can actually harm our relationships with others. A better approach is to focus less on the actual advice you’re giving and more on having a dialogue that will help others eventually to see your point.

• Instead of saying: “Based on my research of industry best practices, my recommendation would be to hide the secondary navigation to leave more room for the content.”
• Try saying: “What do you think the impact would be if we kept the secondary navigation visible on the screen—negative or positive?”

Also, use words that empower other stakeholders to think openly and constructively about making improvements to a design, working with you, rather than raising negative implications.

• Instead of saying: “What don’t you like about the design?”
• Try saying: “What part of the design is most in need of improvement?”

Lastly, avoid using language that puts your colleagues on the defensive regarding their understanding of design challenges. Instead, put any potential miscommunication issues on yourself to facilitate constructive dialogue.

• Instead of saying: “Does that make sense to you?”
• Try saying: “Did I articulate that well?”

Listen and Reframe Stakeholders’ Feedback

People who are successful influencers often point to their listening skills as a primary factor in their success. However, actually listening is only half of the equation. You also need to demonstrate to your stakeholders that you are listening. By reframing their comments and feedback from your perspective, you can actually demonstrate that you are really listening and reinforce the fact that you’re thinking critically about solving the core issue at hand for the benefit of your team.

• Instead of saying: “Not sure if it makes sense to add a tutorial section to the app, as you are suggesting.”
• Try saying: “What I’m hearing is that people need to be able to use the app on their first use. Otherwise, we risk losing them quickly. There are a number of different strategies we can consider.”

Defuse Your Defensiveness

A defensive stance is not conducive to building trust. As designers, once we’ve spent a lot of effort on a particular design, it’s human nature to defend our decisions and resist going back and redoing work. However, a defensive tone tends to heighten emotions in our discussions and cause others to be defensive about their perspective. Instead, recognize others’ positions and steer the dialogue toward the bigger picture. Reassure stakeholders that you are on the same page regarding design implications.

• Instead of saying: “I did it that way for future flexibility. Your way would limit our ability to expand in the future.”
• Try saying: “I see your point. But, before we commit to coding this, we should make sure we understand the long-term impact on the navigation. Doing this could limit our ability to expand the navigation in the future. Let’s explore ways of accomplishing your goal without limiting our flexibility?”

Talk Process, Rationale, and Options

People are pressed for time and, during meetings, we quickly run out of time. But if we jump to offering our advice and dictating a design decision without articulating our thought process, we miss an opportunity to develop a deeper relationship with those with whom we work. As when a teacher requires students to show how they got to an answer, you’ll get more long-term value if you take your stakeholders along the path to your design decisions, considering various options and the advantages and disadvantages of each given design direction. When you do this well, you are simultaneously educating them about User Experience and helping to develop a consensus about the ultimate design decision.

But there’s a delicate balance in achieving this. You still have to present your design options confidently and provide a rationale for each of them. Presenting unfinished design options in the name of encouraging collaboration with stakeholders usually results in their seeing you as unprepared.

• Instead of saying: “Well, we could do it this way, which could work. Or, if we moved things around, that might work, too.”
• Try saying: “We looked at several patterns that are in common use because we agreed that familiarity is important for this audience. Among those patterns, the two options that would fit best in our solution are C and D. Option C would be a good choice if we value efficiency. Notice how the proximity principle really helps here. Option D would be best for clarity for infrequent visitors.”

Empower Your Teammates to Own It

Research shows something that we know inherently: People like their own ideas and opinions best. According to Dolores Albarracin, William Hurt, Inge Brechan, and Lisa Merrill, people are about twice as likely to select options that support their own point of view than to consider opposing ideas. The trick, then, is to guide stakeholders toward agreeing with your advice, while making it seem like it’s their own idea. Remember, through humility and sacrificing any short-term glory and recognition, you can gain the long-term benefit of trustful relationships.

In Summary

Building trust in on-on-one and team relationships is not about subjugating yourself to others. There are times when you must be forceful in delivering your opinions and take a stand. However, if you generally approach your work with the mindset that you are working with others to achieve common goals, it’s much more likely that you’ll be able to build a positive, trusted-advisor relationship.

You shouldn’t be manipulative, insincere, or fake. Be thoughtful in your language, listen, and reframe feedback to bring others along through the design decision–making process. While these ideas may seem like common sense or small nuances in our presentation of ideas, these small things can add up over time, helping you to develop productive, two-way, trustful relationships. With more champions throughout your organization, hopefully you’ll be able to achieve greater influence overall. 

References and Further Reading

Nieters, Jim, and Laurie Pattison. “In Search of Strategic Relevance for UX Teams.” UXmatters, October 6, 2008. Retrieved March 16, 2016.

Albarracin, Dolores, William Hurt, Inge Brechan, and Lisa Merrill. “Feeling Validated Versus Being Correct: A Meta-Analysis of Selective Exposure to Information.” Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 135, No. 4.

Maister, David, Charles Green, and Robert Galford. The Trusted Advisor. New York: Touchstone, 2001.