This is the Nielsen Norman Group UX Podcast.
I'm Therese Fessenden.
There's this common myth about visual design that it's a purely aesthetic endeavor.
But if you pull back the curtain and see the work that goes into these visuals, you'll
often find a lot more than just a good color palette.
So to explore this topic in more detail, I spoke with the mastermind behind a lot of
our digital design these days, Kelly Gordon.
Kelly is the digital design lead at NNG, but before NNG, she was a UX designer at IBM.
Fun fact, she also has a few pending U.S. patents related to search rules, communicating
users' tone, and a cognitive information assistant.
In this episode, we talk about her journey to UX design, what has helped her grow as
a designer, and we break down what visual design really entails.
So I don't actually know the story of how you got into visual design and UX as a whole,
so I would love to hear a little bit about how you got into this field.
Sure.
So I actually went to school for graphic design.
I originally thought I wanted to do architecture because my grandfather was a practicing architect
in India, and I just always thought that was really cool.
I kind of grew up around that, but I had a friend in school, and this is actually in
high school.
He was a little bit ahead of me, and he was in the graphic design program at NC State,
and he was like, I know you, and I think you'll love graphic design way more than architecture.
So I went for it.
He nudged me in that direction, and NC State actually kind of has an emphasis more on user
experience for their design program, so that's kind of how I fell into it.
As far as the visual design side of it goes, I would say that was definitely a development
later in my career.
So yeah, I mean, I guess we would say that it was a nudge from a friend who got me into
this whole mess to begin with.
Nice.
So I would love to dig into this because you've mentioned that there is technically a moment
at which you started looking into visual design, and that is not necessarily a divergence from
UX, but that it is a bit different.
So I would love for you to kind of describe in your words or based on your understanding,
what exactly is the difference between these two things, or how are they related to each
other?
Because obviously they are related, but a little different.
Yeah.
So that's a really great question, Therese, and I feel like I've been in it a while, but
I'm still asking myself that same thing.
So for me, UX is obviously how are users completing tasks or doing things in a service, in an
app, in a flow, how are their needs being met?
Whereas visual design is a lot of how things look and how people feel.
And I've learned that it's not just colors, and it's not just like, oh, this button has
rounded corners, or this has a stroke and this doesn't, and our font is like this.
Those are all very important pieces of visual design.
But it's really, how do you make your visual design work well and work hard in a design?
So it's not just something that's sitting on a page making it look pretty, but it's
really making it kind of work for the user so that it makes it easier to use.
Yeah.
I can totally see that relationship.
You've got the visual design as the means by which you achieve a user experience.
And so when you're doing a design for a user experience, you might have certain intentions,
certain functionalities, certain outcomes that you might want for your user.
But visual design is how you get to those.
Does that seem fair?
I would think so.
That's a good summary, I think, of how I think of it.
So yeah, that's great.
Okay.
Yeah.
So visual design is exciting.
I also had a similar route where I started my own career in information science and understanding
the relationship between research and the ultimate design you put out.
But visual design came as the how, the how I would be contributing into this field of
UX.
And so I did a lot of proof of concepts and putting together palettes and brand guides,
and that was all fun.
At the time, I knew I really wanted to go into research, but other people find that
maybe they start out in a different area and they want to go into visual design because
it's fun, it's hands on, you get to actually see stuff materialize.
Now I'm wondering how that sort of realization came to you, like, this is what I want to
do.
Well, I think it came to me when I was first working in my first job out of college.
And I was working on kind of like a very complex file management content management system.
And I realized that designs that I did that weren't as carefully considered in terms of
how they looked, didn't sell as well then when they did have very considered visuals
with the UX.
So that became like kind of an eye opener of, okay, obviously, visuals are helping in
a way that otherwise I wouldn't be able to get as much support from stakeholders or good
feedback from users when we did research with it, testing.
So that's kind of when I first realized like, oh, there is something here.
And I want to actually kind of utilize that knowledge insight that I've learned.
So yeah, that whole experience of seeing how much farther something goes when it looks
good, you know, is what kind of made me be like, okay, this is definitely worth pursuing
and learning and pushing myself in to get the skills that I need to get so that I feel
confident in what I'm designing and putting out there.
Yeah.
And I love what you said there too, because I feel like when we see a good design, like
something that's visually just, it's there, like, you know, it's got all the good qualities
it needs.
It's hard to describe in words how that feels and how much you feel a connection to whatever
it is that's been designed or how you can sort of envision it living in the real world.
Like I'm thinking of when you present things to stakeholders, like visuals do go a long
way.
So even though like, of course, as a UX professional, I'm like, yeah, looks are great, but we need
to make sure it works.
Looks are also part of whether it works, like whether it's perceived a certain way.
Exactly.
Yeah.
And that's kind of like what we were talking about before, how it's like the intersection
of UX and visual design.
It's like they go hand in hand and you need those both as well as many other aspects of
design to create a good experience.
But for me personally, that's kind of like my sweet spot.
So yeah.
Yeah.
Now, I'm curious if you have like a design mentor or some sort of role model that really
played a huge role in how you became a designer.
Sure.
Yeah.
I have lots of mentors.
And I think learning from people that are at the same point in the career as well as
further in your career is just invaluable experience to have.
So I've had lots of mentors and I've had to have the people say like, people push me and
say, nope, it's bad.
Like just go back to the drawing field and do it over again.
And I needed those words to be like, okay, you're right.
That was terrible.
I didn't put enough effort in that.
Let me try this again.
And like for me, I just need that person, that mentor, that person who's going to push
me and say, I know you can do better because I've seen your work.
So let's keep on working towards that.
So yeah, I think mentors are especially important when you're like very young in your career.
But even when you've been in your position or your role for a long time, I think sometimes
you can feel stuck and you need somebody to give you like that little extra push to get
through, you know, problems that you're facing, as well as just like feeling stuck in the
design, you know, get some fresh eyes on it.
So yeah, I definitely think mentors are super helpful.
And everybody should have one.
Yeah.
And I think about mentors in a couple ways.
And I like how you brought up that point of there are peers, right?
There are people who are kind of at the same level or at the same stage of their career
as you are.
And we shouldn't necessarily look to them as not a candidate for mentor, because in
a way they can teach you a lot about their own respective experiences, maybe things that
they know that you don't know, and vice versa, like you can have this kind of give and take
relationship with a mentor.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Um, I know, we traditionally think of it as somebody who's like higher up of, you know,
somebody that you aspire to be, or has a lot of insight, or maybe has a lot of push or
pull in politically within the company or something like that.
But I think you can get just as much out of a relationship that is even peer to peer.
So yeah, it's a great point, you kind of bring that up.
Yeah.
You mentioned that there were times people would look at your designs and have something
to say, what mistakes or lessons did you have to learn as a designer?
What were some of the challenges that you had to overcome that are particularly memorable?
Um, well, let's see, starting off, I mean, even in college, when you're learning things
and you're just like, have no idea what's going on, what looks good, what doesn't, what
like functions well, I've had so many college professors would be like, um, well, it's lacking
some things here.
And, you know, I mean, like, yeah, I totally agree.
I have no idea what to do next.
But then, you know, so I think it's just like, not making your visuals work hard enough,
you know, is a big thing I had to learn, where it's, it's not like this idea of it looks
pretty.
I mean, that's, that's important.
And that has a lot of impact on perception.
And even getting people to like, you know, their first gut reaction to things and stuff
like that.
But I, I think not making your visuals work hard enough is like, one of the biggest mistakes
people make with visual design.
So you know, this color means this thing.
So use this color in that same way everywhere, you know, or, I don't know, let's, let's think
of other things like this color means red, I mean, this, this color red means, you know,
it's a signal of saying, you know, watch out air alert, whatever.
So make sure you're only using red for that color or something like that.
So I think just like, you know, making it more than just pretty was my, the biggest
thing I've kind of had to learn, and really push for, especially when you're like doing
user testing, because there are all sorts of things that you hear when you're when you're
testing visuals, all sorts of, of things that are helpful and not helpful.
So you know, what, what something what somebody says is pretty, may not be pretty to your
manager, or may not be pretty to your user, or may not be pretty to the person who has
the purse strings in the company to make it happen.
So I think there's just lots of, you know, just make it work harder than just being pretty,
because you've got to have a kind of a rationale for why, why are we doing something and I
feel like I feel like visual designers typically get like a bad rap or like, kind of seem like
less than everybody else.
Because sometimes a lot of the times we are saying like, well, that just looks pretty
this way.
But like, it needs to be more than just pretty like it needs to have a function to why we're
doing that.
So, yeah, what were I think that's like that my very long winded response to that but no,
that's a great response.
But yeah, so it so having more to it to your visual design than just, oh, this is a nice
color palette, like actually thinking through what that color palette means?
What is it communicating?
What are some of the maybe underlying meanings that people are carrying with them if they
have some preconceived ideas of what red means, then, you know, not trying to force fit something
that won't necessarily work.
So yeah, I think that there can be a lot more to visual design than making things pretty.
That's certainly one of the things but there's a lot more that goes into it and I guess the
other thing that makes me a bit sad too is sometimes it's a bit of an underrated skill.
Like it's, it's a skill and it requires a lot of reading and learning different theories
and you know, and actually practicing to see what works.
So yeah, I, you know, you, you bring that up and I one of my biggest things was, you
know, okay, when I was first learning out this whole idea, like, okay, visual design
adds a lot to a design and experience, obviously, I didn't have those skills, but I wanted to
learn them.
So one thing was just like, okay, well, practicing in other areas seems to help refine your skills.
So I will practice in visual design area and doing that, you know, a lot of times I would
look at examples that I thought were very nice looking and polished and clean, professional,
like what did they do that looked that made it feel that way?
What are like, you know, and you're just looking at details, you're looking at color palettes,
you're looking at how are they spacing their, their type out, you know, it might be getting
into doing an inspect, inspecting the code and seeing like, how exactly did they code
it to make it work and look right.
So I just spent like so much time just looking at other places and other examples how things
work to kind of make my skills to where I wanted them to be.
And not at all saying my skills are like top, top level, because there's always room to
grow.
But I think that's just one way I had had started to kind of build my skills out a bit
more.
Yeah.
And those skills, just to kind of lay them out there, like, that's a lot, right?
You had a couple things going on, you have the actual, like, ability to figure out spacing,
figure out how you're going to arrange type, and some of that might even be mathematical.
So just to kind of debunk some myths there about, oh, visual design is just art.
It's not just art, it can also be mathematics, it can also be, like you said, some coding
involved where you actually have to have a little bit of knowledge around maybe HTML
or CSS so that you can figure out where or how you're going to spec this out.
And if you're going to coordinate or collaborate with a developer, you need to be able to communicate
how that style or how this particular element is going to appear.
So yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
And a lot of times also, Therese, we may not have a front end designer, I mean, a front
end developer that we are working with.
So it's, you know, okay, I'm the visual designer, I'm responsible for how it looks, but I can
design something that's beautiful, and then it actually not get kind of developed in that
same way.
So like, how do you learn those skills as well to give the back end developer changes
and tweaks to make it the way it should be?
So yeah, there's a lot of kind of like hidden little skills that you have to have with visual
design, which I think a lot of times goes unnoticed or unacknowledged from a lot of
other designers.
Absolutely.
Now, just to be clear, for those listening, I'm not necessarily saying you have to be
a coding expert to be a visual designer.
Because that, yeah, we're not asking you to be the UX unicorn that knows how to do development
and design and research and all those things.
And if you can do those things, first of all, props to you.
But we also recognize that that can often be very impractical, not just from the side
of getting all of those requisite skills, but also just time wise, it's a lot to do
all of those responsibilities.
And it can often make it difficult for organizations that are growing, maybe they did okay at first
with like one person, but as the organization grows, you will have people working in their
own areas, right, their own specialties.
But that doesn't mean a visual designer can just dump those skills, right?
Those skills are still going to be really valuable.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Yes.
Being a unicorn is not really realistic.
It is not, sadly.
Well, I actually wanted to pick your brain about something because through your career
growing as a visual designer, there were times that you had to receive feedback, right?
And it seems like a lot of those moments of growth had a lot to do with feedback.
How did you get good at receiving feedback?
Because I know for me, sometimes if somebody tells me that this design needs a little work,
sometimes I'll make a little pouty face like, but it's good.
And then I look at it like, well, yeah, actually, you're right.
This could probably be improved.
So what do you recommend or what advice would you give to help designers be able to receive
this feedback in a way that is not too painful, but at the same time, you can actually do
something with it?
Yeah, that's a great question.
I think it's just a lot of practice.
I ask a lot for people to give me feedback on work that I'm doing.
And I try to do it when I think my work is at a point, obviously, where it's worth asking
for feedback.
So I try to set myself up for success in that way.
But you just have to take a step back and say, okay, my work is not where it should
be yet.
That is okay.
Like, we've learned these things from this conversation.
So now how do we make it better?
And you have to kind of take yourself out of the equation.
Obviously, it does help with some soft skills from the person giving you feedback of, you
know, not saying you, you, you're like terrible, and I hope you're not working with people
like that.
Um, you know, kind of just, you just have to say, this is not a reflection of me personally,
this is, you know, I'm learning these skills, and these are ways for me to improve them.
So I would, I would say that's kind of how I've done it.
And obviously, the doing it a million times has helped kind of make it a bit less tense.
So yeah,
yeah, it seems like it's two part, right?
Obviously, you're not responsible for what somebody else tells you, but yeah.
But there is some degree of separation that you need to have between your sense of self
as a person, your sense of worth as a person, and the work that you're putting out there.
It seems like that's a really important component to staying sane for one, but also being able
to use the feedback in a meaningful way.
Right.
So if you're not getting feedback that you feel is meaningful, then you just have to
start kind of prying and asking some more questions like, could you explain a little
bit more by what you mean, you know, or could you elaborate on this point x, y, and z, and
kind of get to a place where it does feel a bit more tangible or, you know, I can actually
take these points to better increase my to increase my, you know, my work on how it how
it is.
So, yeah, so I think I think you're totally spot on.
It's kind of stepping away, but also digging in a little bit of how to ask questions or
how to respond to respond to them.
Yeah.
Now, I guess on that same note, if you had to give advice to somebody giving feedback,
since often you're working in a group of designers, and you're all kind of helping each other
to succeed in some way, what advice could you give to the feedback giver?
To feedback giver.
So there's, there's a good method here, you guys are going to think like, of course, everybody
knows this.
But you know, compliment sandwich a little bit, you know, like, hey, I see you've spent
a lot of time working on this.
Well done, props to you.
Here are the things that you could work on, I think, and then follow it up with, I think
this is going to be really great with these changes and even probably things that you'll
do continue to do without my feedback, you know, so so nice and simple, and makes the
person getting the feedback feel, you know, valued and heard and appreciated, which is
a huge thing for when you're giving feedback.
So yeah, yeah.
Yeah, the compliment sandwich is simple, but at the same time, incredibly powerful.
And I think it gets a bad rap, because it's, it's, and I know that it can often feel especially
if you have strong opinions, the compliment sandwich can sometimes feel in genuine, because
maybe in your heart of hearts, you're like, this is awful.
But all that said, there is always an opportunity to be objective.
And that's the way I look at the compliment sandwich is it's yes, it can soften the blow
of difficult feedback, but at the same time, it forces us to be more objective about how
we deliver what it is we're criticizing.
So so I think it serves two purposes.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, and it's like, okay, okay, I don't like what I'm seeing here.
But I'm gonna find at least one thing that is good.
And from that one thing that's going to build rapport with whoever is receiving feedback,
and making them feel like, okay, they can, I, you know, they can, they can do design,
even if they're new, you know, so it's like forcing yourself to get out of this constantly
critiquing pattern that I think as designers we have, you know, it's like, always what
can be better, there's always something better.
But also acknowledging the effort that you have spent to do something so yeah, compliment
sandwich I know but also it is useful.
It is it definitely is so I know this is a shameless plug for one of our one hour talks
it was Sarah Gibbon she talks about how to structure a design critique and I think that's
also a big like my my big takeaway free for whoever's listening is do try to structure
your design critique so that way at least it's not just all opinions like you actually
have specific criteria that you're looking at.
So that way when you do give feedback it's not about the person and it's not just about
how you feel but you know what is it ultimately achieving what is the design ultimately achieving
right and making it very tangible you know there's nothing worse than I think my first
job there was this one stakeholder that just would just we were like what are you even
telling us right now we walk away from a conversation where she's giving us feedback and we just
like had no idea what she was even saying I don't even know if like she knew what she
was saying but it was just like make it tangible so that it's easy to digest and I can like
actually make changes based on what you're suggesting so yeah there you go now we've
been talking quite a bit about you know visual designers and growing in this craft and also
being able to help other designers grow in this craft now there might be folks listening
who aren't visual designers at all right and and maybe are tasked with the responsibility
to create something visual maybe that's a proof of concept or maybe that it could be
that the visual designer is gone and they need to somehow step in so are there any tips
you could give to people who don't necessarily call themselves visual designers but find
themselves tasked with the responsibility to do some form of visual design sure so so
a couple of things here I think that is helpful if you're if the place that you work for has
a you know style guide a pattern library a you know some some type of system to help you design
and has a place that stores colors and fonts and sizes and space speckings and all that
kind of stuff use that because obviously you should not be reinventing the wheel but look
at designs that other people have designed using those patterns and see how they've put
them together kind of like kind of do the look at an example and analyze it break it
down how to how they do it why does it look good like that use those styles that have
already been created but for people who don't have maybe you work out a smaller place and
they don't have this kind of robust system you can still look at other examples and find
what works well and why does it work but if you honestly have like nothing to go off of
one of your best bets for people who don't know anything about visual designs is so a
color palette can vastly improve or not improve a experience of a design so I would say if
you have like no color experience no visual design experience keep everything monochromatic
so like maybe pick one color pick a couple other colors within that color spectrum so
you're saying like a dark purple a light purple a medium purple and stick to those three purples
and hopefully I mean that should set you up for success success there because it's like
the easiest way to elevate a design if you have no idea how to mix colors use colors
anything like that super easy too because it's like okay this is a light dark and medium
shade of this one color yeah otherwise I mean it's really about you just got to practice
it out and see you know kind of step back we do this the squint test a lot you step
back from something squint you know what does it look like what are you seeing what's coming
out to you first that's kind of giving you a clue at the visual hierarchy of things and
so that can kind of give you an idea of hey that's not what I want people to see first
so what do I need to do to change that so there are a couple little little tricks and
stuff like that if you they just have no experience with visual design which is completely fine
we need people like that too but you know those kinds of things might help you kind
of get started or fill in the gap until somebody returns or you know make something look decent
enough to give to a stakeholder or something like that yeah definitely monochromatic schemes
I think that's even becoming like a fashion trend as well where it's just monochromatic
outfits like that if you are ever unsure how to match things monochrome is a great yeah
great approach less thought involved but you still can make it look intentional and and
put together and I do appreciate that squint test mentioned too because we have our one
of our full day courses web page ux design where we actually do the squint test to see
like if we're designing a web page is the button that we really need people to click
on actually standing out or is it starting to blend into the background and while it
might seem like you know a small change that is you know maybe it seems trivial it's not
trivial because visual hierarchy is the order in which we digest the world around us right
we kind of look at what's most visually obvious and go from there so yeah as far as thinking
about your designs working hard enough and working for you like that's one of the ways
that you can do that absolutely yeah yeah yeah yeah and I guess this is also another
good opportunity for a different shameless plug but if you are a new newcomer to the
visual design field or visual design practice we also have a full day class visual design
fundamentals which you know if we wanted to plug that it is a great opportunity to actually
get hands-on practice making designs look aesthetically pleasing but yeah kelly to
kind of close out I did want to pick your brain about just if you had to give any parting
words of wisdom to other designers who are looking to kind of level up what would you
tell them I would tell them don't give up it's something that takes a lot of experience
and finessing with and a lot of times there's small little changes to things that make something
feel more polished and more put together and visually so it doesn't you know it feels like
you maybe you're just I'm moving this thing two pixels here and I'm changing this color
barely but those little details add up and do bring a lot of polish to a design so don't
give up you can do it look around you ask for feedback and keep on practicing you'll
get there yeah yeah could not agree more and if I were to inject one last little piece
of advice is never name your file final really rarely ever reached that point so that would
be my my word my wisdom for the world all right well kelly thank you so much for your
time if anyone wants to follow you on social media where could you point them to you know
terese I don't actually have a professional twitter or professional instagram but shameless
plug follow nng so at nngux we definitely have instagram there I do a lot of the posts
and stuff like that so I guess follow us there yes yes kelly is the mastermind of our nng
instagram account and is often the mastermind behind a lot of our visuals so so we're really
glad to have her as part of our team and do follow us there if you want to see more of
her work well kelly thank you so much for your time it's been an absolute pleasure yeah
awesome thanks terese I appreciate it it's been a great talk
that was kelly gordon you can find her visual creations on our instagram at nngux if you
want to find her articles and videos or if you want more ux content in general you can
find all of these at our website along with some info about upcoming virtual ux conferences
so the next ones are taking place on june 18 through 24 and july 16 through 22 for all
of that information check out www.nngroup.com that's n-n-g-r-o-u-p.com and of course if
you like this show and you want to support our work the easiest way to do that is to
leave a rating and follow or subscribe to our podcast on whatever platform of choice
this show is hosted and produced by me terese fessenden and all sound editing and post-production
is by jonas selner music is by dresden a flamingo and tiny music special thank you to kelly
gordon for her time on the show thanks for listening to this episode of the nngux podcast
that's it for today until next time remember keep it simple