{"id":14539,"date":"2016-07-25T18:30:43","date_gmt":"2016-07-26T01:30:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uxpin.com\/studio\/?p=14539"},"modified":"2026-03-09T20:01:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T03:01:16","slug":"5-mistakes-avoid-designing-remotely","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uxpin.com\/studio\/blog\/5-mistakes-avoid-designing-remotely\/","title":{"rendered":"When Remote Design Fails: 5 Mistakes to Avoid"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you think remote collaboration is hard, you\u2019re not alone. Most people find remote work challenging in some way.<\/span><\/p>\n

Creative work is particularly disadvantaged when it comes to distributed teams. Our work is visual and entails creative group participation. Many designers can\u2019t imagine running creative work session remotely. <\/span><\/p>\n

But our research also shows that remote design is very common: of the <\/span>275 designers we polled<\/span><\/a>, 2\/3 said they deal with remote situations on 80% or more of their projects.<\/span>
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\n<\/span>We also found that about 50% of designers feel that the quality of their work goes down when working remotely. This is a problem. Clearly, if designers are expected to work remotely AND be productive and effective, new processes and tools are needed. <\/span><\/p>\n

But don\u2019t despair. With a little practice and forethought, you can continue to design effectively with remote teams. <\/span><\/p>\n

From our conversations with and observations of remote designers from around the world, here are the biggest pitfalls we\u2019ve seen at <\/span>Mural<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

1. Not enough preparation. <\/span><\/h2>\n

Sounds simple, but people often underestimate the amount of planning required for effective remote collaboration. <\/span><\/p>\n

A key recommendation is to break down exercises into small steps and timebox each step. As a completely remote company of 30 employees, we\u2019ve found that hour-long activities break down really well into short spurts of about 2-5 minutes. <\/span><\/p>\n

During any remote collaboration workshops, give overly detailed instructions. If you want everyone to look at your screen, make that explicit and repeat what they should be seeing. If you want everyone to add a sketch to a shared folder, communicate exactly where it is and how they should name files. <\/span><\/p>\n

For instance, Doug Powell, Design Fellow at IBM, shows in <\/span>a webinar<\/span><\/a> how IBMers do what he refers to as \u201cmicro-timeboxing\u201d. They shoot to have short bursts of activity that last only minutes. In doing so, the team completes the activity quickly with maximum participant attention.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The bottom line is that remote design takes more discipline and rigor. It may feel like more work for you initially, but running efficient work sessions saves time in the long run.<\/span><\/p>\n

Learn more: The Guide to Agile UX Design Sprints<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

2. Facilitators assume offline techniques work the same way online. <\/span><\/h2>\n

The techniques that work perfectly fine offline simply don\u2019t work in remote context. <\/span><\/p>\n

For instance, <\/span>breakout groups<\/span><\/a> are a staple of <\/span>design sprints<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>ideations sessions<\/span>. They tend to not work so well online in real-time sessions, primarily because of the single audio feed: how will breakout groups communicate with each other without everyone else hearing? <\/span><\/p>\n

Instead of breakout groups, take turns when working remotely. Have each person work alone at first (with a limited amount of time, of course) and then present back to the group.<\/span><\/p>\n

So, design techniques conceived offline need some translation to work online.
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\n<\/span>For example, we partnered with Jeff Gothelf, author of Lean UX, to translate his workshop for a remote context. Together, we ran several sessions where we guided a team of participants through the Lean UX method using our app as a visual collaboration platform.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Jeff Gothelf teaches a remote UX workshop. <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

We learned that, in addition to good preparation and timeboxing activities and giving clear instructions, we had to adjust the logistics of Jeff\u2019s course. Here are some things we recommend doing:<\/span><\/p>\n

1. Turn breakout groups into individual work followed by a group discussion.<\/span><\/p>\n

2. Call on everyone to participate in order so everyone gets a chance to speak. This addresses the difficulty of speaking up or butting into remote conversations.<\/span><\/p>\n

3. Designate discussion leads to keep things moving and avoid awkward silences or confusion about who\u2019s going to speak. Be clear about other roles as well, such as note taker and timekeeper.<\/span><\/p>\n

4. Play background music during longer activities. 10 minutes of silence during a remote session will feel like a long time. Turning music down at the end of exercise then lets the group know that time\u2019s up. <\/span><\/p>\n

3. Teams don\u2019t capture information digitally. <\/span><\/h2>\n

There\u2019s nothing quite like sketching on paper or standing shoulder to shoulder at a whiteboard. Who doesn\u2019t like a good war room?<\/span><\/p>\n

But sticky notes and screenshots on a wall in the office are a dead end for anyone not onsite. <\/span><\/p>\n

Remote team members are effectively locked out of information available only in a physical format. Sure, you can take a photo or point a webcam at a whiteboard for remote folks to see, but that\u2019s both unsatisfying and static itself: once the interaction is over, that information is lost. <\/span><\/p>\n

The advice is clear: digitize your information on-the-fly. You can continue to work with pens and paper, but plan how you\u2019ll convert physical artifacts to digital as you create them. <\/span><\/p>\n

Having an agreed set of tools and locations online to store information in advance helps. But also think about working digitally from the outset. We\u2019re a distributed team spanning 4 time zones, from Buenos Aires to San Francisco. Team meetings, design studios, and brainstorming sessions are done almost exclusively online.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Couple of our Mural team members based around the world. <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

For instance, we\u2019ve found this process useful for consolidating design decisions across continents: <\/span><\/p>\n