What Designers Want from Product Managers

As a product designer, I want to build meaningful products that connect with people. I want to create products that are useful, usable, and desirable. And I want your help — as a product manager — to achieve these goals.

What do you want from me? That’s an important question for both of us because it can help us build trust and mutual understanding between our two roles within the larger organization. By learning what each other needs from one another, we can improve our collective ability to fulfill our common goal: creating great products that delight users and stakeholders alike!

We can build a mutual understanding of what we each need from the other, and trust each other in our specific roles, so that we can all fulfill our common goals together.

As a product manager, you need to understand the designer’s role in order to work together effectively. Designers are responsible for creating products that users want and need by taking an empathetic approach to understanding the user’s journey and pain points. Product managers are responsible for bringing those ideas into reality by using data, market research, analytics, business objectives and goals to prioritize features or changes that will make your product better meet customer needs.

If you have a clear understanding of each other’s roles and responsibilities — as well as a shared vision for how your team can collaborate effectively — then you’ll be able to set direction together more easily.

I want it to be all about the user.

For designers, user experience is the most important thing. It’s not “the bottom line.” It’s not “how many users we have.” It’s not even the product itself (or at least it shouldn’t be).

User experience is the reason a product exists and why people will come back to that product over others. It’s also why people will recommend it to their friends and colleagues. And finally, when it comes time for them to pay for your software or service, user experience is often what makes them decide whether or not they want to do so in your favor over some other option out there that may cost less but has worse UX.

I want you to help me understand the stakeholders.

As a designer, the most important thing you can do for me is help me understand the stakeholders. Why? Because my job is to create something that meets their needs and helps them achieve their goals. If I know how they think and what they want, then my designs will be more successful. How can you help me understand them? Ask questions about what’s important to them; don’t assume anything about what those needs are! This will allow us both to make better decisions together in order to create great products for everyone involved.

Why should we care about our stakeholders’ needs? Because it makes our jobs easier! Instead of guessing at what people want or need from a product (and possibly creating something that doesn’t really solve any problems at all), let’s work with them directly so we can build exactly what they’re looking for — which means happier customers and more successful projects overall!

I want you to ask for my perspectives.

• I want you to ask for my perspectives.
• I want you to ask for my feedback on your work.
• I want you to ask for my advice on your work.
• I want you to ask me to review your work before it goes out the door, preferably with at least a day or two in advance so that we can have a conversation beforehand where we can clarify questions and address issues together as opposed to after the fact when things are already live or being sent out into the world.

I want you to be curious about my work.

• Ask me questions about my work.

I know you’re busy, and you have a lot of things on your plate. That being said, I really appreciate when product managers take the time to ask me questions about my design and process — even if they don’t have time right this second! It shows that you care and are curious about the projects we’re working on, which can lead to better understanding and communication between us.

• Ask me questions about my design principles.

We all have principles that guide our work: things like “Don’t do something just because it’s easy or familiar” or “When in doubt, go with less visual noise.” These kinds of beliefs help us make decisions when we’re stuck (or worse yet, when there’s no clear right answer). Asking me what drives me as a designer helps both of us understand where our different perspectives come from — and how far apart those perspectives may be at times!

I want you to let me fail and learn from my mistakes too.

Designers want to be able to fail, and they want you to let them.

They don’t just want the freedom to fail once in a while, but rather an understanding that mistakes are an essential part of the design process. The designer’s job is to create something new and exciting, so they need space within which they can explore their ideas without fear of being criticized or shamed by others. This means that as a PM, you should never criticize them for trying something new — even if it doesn’t work out as expected!

In this way, designers aren’t afraid to make mistakes because they know that failure is part of learning how things work best for end users. If a user interface isn’t working well for people (even though it may look beautiful), then it’s okay for designers not only ask questions about why but also figure out ways in which this could be improved upon before presenting those findings back up along with suggestions on how these issues could possibly be solved down the road at another stage when there’s more time available (and resources) available for solving problems independently instead after having already spent hours working together during earlier stages where everyone involved was focused solely on building functionality first before thinking about how user interfaces might look like afterwards (which happens most often thanks…

I want you to mentor me on decision-making and management skills.

The product design process is not just about creating a great product. It’s also about making sound, informed and effective decisions along the way.

Product managers have a duty to lead the team through this process, but they need help from designers. You can mentor them on how to make good decisions and manage their time effectively; you can teach them how to manage stakeholders with tact, patience and perseverance; and you can share your expertise in project management so that they don’t have to figure every single thing out on their own.

We will nurture healthy product culture together

We will nurture healthy product culture together, from research to design crits.

Product managers are in charge of the overall health of your product and its culture. Designers have a strong voice in how we build products, but also have an equally important role to play in cultivating and maintaining a healthy product culture that supports designers’ work.

Let’s work together to build a strong product culture.

Conclusion

The product manager has one of the most difficult jobs in the world. They’re responsible for managing the development of an entire product from idea to launch, and that often means making tough calls about what features are going to be included and which ones aren’t. It’s a job that requires a deep understanding of how customers use your product, how competitors are doing things differently than you, and how it all fits together with the overall business strategy.

Product managers need to do this while keeping in mind that they’re working on something that will eventually be used by real people — not just themselves! And if they get too caught up in their own vision or try to micromanage every single detail, it can be hard to maintain that balance between user experience design (UX) and development time. From hiring new employees who have never worked on teams before down through project management approaches like Scrum or Kanban — there are so many ways you can fail at being a good PM if you don’t know what designers want from their partners!

Designers want their PMs to understand them as individuals with unique needs.

They don’t want micro-managers who will try take over all aspects of project management themselves — they need someone who is willing to let them own some responsibilities!

Designers also need someone who understands why design decisions matter so much more than any other part of development so they can explain these things clearly during meetings where others might not see why this matters at all!

What designers want from their product managers: communication skills; empathy; flexibility; patience; honesty; humility; commitment!

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🤫 A little secret: This post was written by AI! 😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱