Designing with Remote Teams – A Guide for Product Designer

Designing with Remote Teams – A Guide for Product Designer

By

RSS
Follow by Email
Facebook
Twitter

Are you a product designer working with a remote team? Designing with remote teams from the comfort of your home can be fun — we certainly don’t miss those long hours commuting to and from the office.

However, working from home comes with its fair share of struggles. Need some tips to keep a balance between your personal and professional life? We are here to help with this compact yet comprehensive guide for remote design teams.

Without further ado, let’s get started!

1. Set Up a Dedicated Space

Set Up a Dedicated Space

In your office, you have a designated space to work, which helps with your focus and boosts your efficiency. Keep your laptop, design files, and other work-related stuff in a particular place. Even though it sounds tempting, don’t work in your living room or your kitchen, or any place where you can easily get disturbed by friends and family.

Here are a few things that can make your home office a great place to design.

  1. A stable internet speed and connection
  2. Comfortable chair and desk
  3. Headphones to reduce background noise
  4. Creative tools like markers, post-its, etc.

When you are working with remote contributors, you are bound to come across computer viruses, like Bing redirects, that affect your browser. Make sure that you know ways to fix the malware before it takes over your computer and you lose precious design work.

Cybersecurity is of utmost importance when you are working with a remote design team — use the appropriate tools to protect your design projects!

2. Get Out of Your PJs

Who doesn’t want to wear comfortable pajamas all the time, right? When you are designing from home, it is very tempting to stay in your night clothes and not get dressed up. However, this is something you should refrain from.

Getting dressed up is a ritual that signals your brain that you are ready for work and sets the tone for a productive, efficient day. What you wear is entirely up to you — whether you want to wear formal business attire or are happy wearing jeans and a t-shirt, the goal is to get you out of your PJs!

Ensure that you follow a set routine when it comes to remote work as well — wake up at a particular time, work for a few hours, take a break, and so on. It is good to start working at the same time every day – just as you would have done if working at a physical office!

3. Talk to Your Colleagues

Talk to Your Colleagues

One of the perks of going to an actual office is meeting up with your colleagues. You go to work each day, you meet your friends as you work, on coffee breaks, have lunch with them, and a lot more.

However, when you are working from home, it is very easy to go the entire day without talking to anyone. Don’t do that — make sure that once you are done with your work, and even while designing, you stay connected with your team work.

Call them, toss around ideas, and get creative help from them. Even without any physical interaction, your remote design team is there to support you. Don’t fly solo — discover a rhythm to meet your team.

It can be team lunches, Friday drinking hours, etc. You can have virtual fun with your design team as well by playing online karaoke or online board games if you can’t meet up. When working with remote contributors, what matters is that you connect with your team to avoid design mistakes, even if you don’t meet them in person daily.

Set up regular meetings to discuss your progress with your colleagues and get their help if required.

4. Set Your Priorities and Establish Your Goals

It is better to plan ahead. Make a work schedule according to the design tasks that you want to accomplish, and then stick to it. Without a sense of direction, it is impossible to work productively and efficiently.

Once you have made a work schedule, share it with your remote team to keep them in the loop. One of the vices of remote work is that there are various distractions around, and you let yourself get tempted by them.

Make sure that once you start working, there are no distractions around. Once you have completed your work, you can have as much fun with your friends and family as you want, but nothing in between!

5. Take Small Breaks

Take Small Breaks

You don’t have to become a workaholic. It is essential to take small breaks as you work to keep yourself fresh and energetic. If you stay glued to your screen, designing all day, it will not be good for your mental health.

To stay on schedule, take 5-minute breaks after every hour. Get up from your chair, walk around the block, or just go to your kitchen and grab a bite before you start designing with remote teams again.

Designing with Remote Teams — Guide for Remote Design Teams

Working with remote contributors is not hard — it is just different. Make sure that you add a little bit of fun to your virtual working process and foster team spirit. Go easy on yourself — even if you are a little late, don’t give yourself a hard time.

As long as you finish all your design projects well within the deadline, you are doing great! Follow the simple steps in this guide for remote design teams, and things will become easy for you.

Author Profile

Christy Bella
Christy Bella
Blogger by Passion | Contributor to many Business and Marketing Blogs in the United Kingdom | Fascinated with SEO and digital marketing and latest tech innovations |