Taste

Tl;dr: Taste is not the excuse we should use to push the changes for our product. Evidence-based research will make a stronger claim and let us have a voice on the table.

More often than I admitted, I saw the word “taste” thrown around in my industry. Truthfully speaking, I don’t think we have an objective definition of “taste” in this field. Either we just associate “taste” as in “knowing which design failed and knowing which one have more chance to success” at best, and “have a unique eye for quality” at worst.

“Taste” is purely subjective.

The truth is that we don’t agree with others’ “taste” about design. You can’t just say “I have a superior taste unlike you” (I’m exaggerating this). What kind of evidences that you would say that? How can you decide that your “taste” is better than them? And even in this industry, “taste” alone won’t do you justice, it will bring a bad look on you because you not take into consideration about the goals and the decisions behind your designs and only base it on “taste”. Your works cannot survive on “taste” alone.

Another thing why I don’t like the word “taste” is also that it reduces us into “instinct-driven designer” or worse, “visual pleaser”. It undermines our job as a designer who deliver design solution that achieve both user goals and business goals. It hinders our growth as a person whose interests and expertise are different from other designers.

So, if its not taste that drive our influence, what thing we should back up our design decisions? The answer is simple: research.

• Back up our design rationale with good research. You don’t want to jump into prototype screens right away, because it gave you a false sense of “completed product”. Instead of that, I will suggest you to go back to the good old one, simple black and white wireframes. Pavel did describe this problem and encourage us to start designing in content, not in code
• Know how to do the collaboration work. A single designer can’t solve a product’s problem by themselves, but knowing how to bring a whole room of people and stakeholders to all work towards the goals of the product is surely more successful. All of your problems are people problem

There is no “taste” in UX works. The word “taste” is so conveniently and convincingly that as long as your designs fit your stakeholders’ “taste”, they will let the designs do whatever they want. You don’t want to have to scramble back to your work desk change the color purple to blue.

What really matters is that we need to do good UX works. And good UX works means real research works too. Good research works actually make us get to the core problem faster and deliver outcomes as evidences better.

Quality research works last long too, so your team always have valuable resources to come back to learn about them, and your product actually bring value for both the users and the business. And with good research backing up behind your designs, you will have a strong point of view why this design works, and not limiting yourself to just “making it the way I like it cause I have a good taste”. Design without good research is, to be frank, bad design.

Fake research with “agentic users” sounds so tempting, but of course there are reasons and hard evidence why it not works. Don’t take the shortcut, because the less time you spending being wrong, the more time you will have to get to the right thing.