"You think too much like an engineer” — unpacking feedback for designers with an engineering background

No matter what kind of background you have, to some extent it probably shapes your thinking patterns. If you can find ways to harness it effectively and break its limitations, you can keep growing.

I recently interviewed a user experience design intern applicant who studied engineering in college. Having a computer science background myself, I brought this up in our discussion. During the Q&A at the end, they asked me about the pros and cons of designers with an engineering background. They said that while working on design projects, they had been told a few times that their way of thinking was "too engineering-like", so they wanted to pick my brain on this.

Their question took me back to the early days of my design career when I'd received similar feedback. I majored in computer-related fields for both my undergraduate and graduate studies but found that programming did not make me happy. So I decided to switch careers. Through much effort, I successfully transitioned into a user experience designer role in the internet industry – a position I still occupy today today. I remember at least a couple of occasions managers commented that my thinking was very engineering-like. At the time, I didn't think too much about what that meant or how it impacted my design work. I simply thought they were referring to my technical background.

It wasn't until years later that the meaning behind “engineering thinking” finally clicked for me. In the early stages of a project, I noticed my tendency to push solutions that seemed simpler from a technical implementation standpoint. Even when initially brainstorming different design options, I unconsciously screened ideas through a “feasibility” filter informed by my technical knowledge. For example, if I could normally think of ten different design directions, the filter running in my brain - "That would be too difficult", "We can't build that", "Isn't that too exaggerated, forget it" - resulted in only five making it onto paper. Ideas with novel angles that should have been explored more may have been actively killed by me before they had a chance to develop.

Vetting ideas on “implementability” too early when tackling a design challenge, before you've even begun to explore concepts, restricts how far and wide you can explore. Even the engineers responsible for final implementation might struggle at first to accurately size up the feasibility of an early design concept. And with my dated technical skill set compared to our engineers, now when I look back, why should I concern myself with that?

The value of user experience designers lies in bringing a user perspective to the team. The details of implementation feasibility can be discussed later when reviewing proposed solutions with engineers.

So in retrospect, I can see how over-relying on that feasibility filter early on hindered my capacity to really let my imagination run wild during ideation.

Nowadays, when tackling design problems, I make a point to consciously push myself to see ideas from multiple viewpoints and document all solutions I can dream up - not just ones that seem straightforward to build at first glance. As for that nagging inner filter, if I catch myself thinking “No way that could work”, I’ll just jot down those doubts next to the idea without letting them derail my creative flow altogether.

Since then, I feel like my exploration for solutions has become broader. I've even received praise a few times for having novel ideas, which has made me more confident during designing.

I didn't get the chance to dive deeper into this topic with my previous managers, but I’ve found methods that work well for me.

So, is having a computer engineering background helpful for being a designer?

In my many years as a designer, I've always collaborated very happily with my software engineer colleagues. I find that knowing some technology allows for smoother communication when discussing the implementation of design solutions - when they talk about building a single-page application, chat some JavaScript, or discuss backend technologies, sometimes I understand instantly, sometimes generally, and can quickly grasp the impact of technical feasibility on my proposed designs. This makes it easier to align on the designs and how to better improve them.

That said, I can't just rely on my "technical background" forever. The cutting-edge technologies in my current focus area sometimes still make my head spin. User experience directions are also often influenced by technology directions, which are in turn led by engineers. The computer knowledge I learned was from many years ago and not all relevant either. Every time I read technical documents, there are many new terms and definitions I make an effort to try to understand, so I don't get intimidated by these seemingly formidable technical details and can communicate better with the engineers.

In a recent project, I felt like there was some information in our product that had never been shown to users, yet could help them make better decisions. I drew up some concept diagrams and proposed the idea, explaining why it would be useful for users. The lead engineer said that if we could display that information, it would indeed greatly benefit users, but implementation would be very complex and couldn't happen in the short term. However, we could at least document those pieces of information in our technical specs. This demonstrates the value of designers - we can help uncover opportunities to improve user experience. Even if various factors prevent implementation, it should still be brought up.

No matter what kind of background you have, to some extent it probably shapes your thinking patterns. If you can find ways to harness it effectively and break its limitations, you can keep growing.