Scott Berkun conducted a survey surrounding the topic of
“why designers and people who work with designers believe designers don’t achieve the results they desire”
His top findings:
The 389 survey respondents self identified as:
| Designer | 33.7% | |
| Project manager | 16.5% | |
| Programmer / Tester | 11.8% | |
| Usability engineer | 9.5% | |
| Group manager | 6.9% | |
| Business / Marketing | 3.9% | |
| Documentation | 1.3% | |
| Other | 16.5% |
The top 15 issues, ranked by average scores were:
| People in non-design roles making design decisions | 4.18 |
| Managers making design decisions w/o design training | 4.14 |
| Designers don’t seek enough data before designing | 3.92 |
| No time is provided for long term thinking | 3.81 |
| Not receptive to critical feedback | 3.69 |
| Lack of awareness of the business fundamentals | 3.66 |
| Only lip-service is paid to “User centered design” | 3.64 |
| It’s never made safe to fail or experiment | 3.62 |
| Designer’s power diluted by too many cooks | 3.60 |
| Over-reliance on one kind of design style | 3.54 |
| Poor collaboration skills | 3.51 |
| Poor persuasion / idea pitching skills | 3.49 |
| Poor communication skills | 3.49 |
| Poor understanding of domain | 3.48 |
| Pressure to use first solution, not a good solution | 3.45 |
| Big Ego / Expects others to cater to their whims | 3.41 |
More summary and breakdown of the results here
