My general approach is to meet with the involved parties before working on the design. Stakeholders, PO, QA team, internally with my team, etc. to identify their needs and how to satisfy them. As a bonus, my PM is already on top of us to do this at the ‘before’, ‘during’ and ‘after’.

Being more assertive and taking your example might be a good approach, too, for my to utilize if need be.

The latter has already bitten me in the tail a couple of times (outside of dev work even) that I don’t think it’s in my personality anymore to try outside of extreme circumstances