Thread by @PavelASamsonov

The fidelity of your design artifacts needs to match the fidelity of your research insights. Getting ahead of your knowledge with beautiful mockups that rest entirely upon assumptions is AT BEST wasted work, and at worst burns design's credibility with stakeholders.
1/🧵

Without research, the value of anything you're drawing is purely speculative. But it doesn't look like it to non-designers - without being immersed in the use case, all they see is "the design is done." They will expect to see that thing built.
2/🧵

When new evidence suggests that this design is not the right solution, it will be a struggle to convince stakeholders that changes need to be made. Even if product hasn't already started cutting tickets and scheduling work - the first design sticks firmly in people's minds.
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It might be tempting to hide the high-fidelity artifacts from stakeholders, and use them only in your experiments. After all, more realistic = more better, right?

Wrong - if you show something that looks 90% done, you'll miss crucial "30%" feedback.
42floors.com/blog/startups/…

4/🧵

The "ask just 1 question in your email if you want it to be answered" rule also works for UX - only show participants what you want feedback on. The appearance of the hi-fi design will distract users/stakeholders from your questions about the flows/content/core value.

5/🧵

Producing lo-fi artifacts late in the process creates similar problems - stakeholders see the fidelity "moving backwards" and start to wonder why these questions haven't already been answered. You might be sketching from day 1 to release day, but keep them to yourself.

6/6 🧵