

Things They Don’t Teach You In Design School - csomar
http://designreviver.com/tips/10-things-they-dont-teach-you-in-design-school/

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Raphomet
Solid advice for recent grads. Most of the list pertains to software
engineers, too.

To add to #4 - "You must be able to handle irrelevant criticism": when I was
working as a junior developer, my mentors would intentionally throw in a
hideous design element if they were going to present a prototype to product
management or design.

This would give certain product management types something obvious to point
out and fix, and offend designers so much they'd work to get us prettier
assets ASAP. The better PMs were able to see through the trick and focus on
the real problems.

I thought this was stupid until I saw how well it worked.

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replicatorblog
Haha, The PM's at my office actually would pull a reverse on that technique.
Noting a flaw they would just say something like: "Oh no problem, the
engineers at competitor X probably just got lucky when they did it..." the guy
in question was very smooth so it was a challenge to your pride without
seeming overly jerky.

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replicatorblog
All great points, I would add "You need to learn to speak the language of
engineers, marketers, and managers" This is usually the biggest challenge for
designers. Many get stuck speaking a language of aesthetics that fly over the
head of most people. I manage a design team and have a rule during reviews not
to use the word "Like". This forces everyone to be objective and use
terminology that makes sense to many stakeholder groups.

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omouse
_Make sure your client signs a contract

This is sometimes annoying, especially when you think that you can trust the
client,_

This is such a stupid thing to say. Our society is built on written laws and
contracts. They aren't annoying and they're much better than the alternative:
having enough firepower to physically threaten someone if they break your
verbal agreement :/

