Designers should focus on bringing data-driven approaches into conversations to demonstrate the value of their design decisions.
Establishing a robust design culture involves defining design principles, implementing design systems, and integrating customer-driven insights.
Deep dives
Struggles of Designers Getting Their Voice Heard
Designers often struggle to have their voice heard within tech teams, facing challenges where their design insights based on customer research are not acknowledged. Mentoring designers to bring data-driven approaches into conversations helps bridge this gap, enabling them to communicate effectively and demonstrate the value of their design decisions.
Importance of Design in Tech Organizations
Design plays a crucial role in enhancing business performance, with organizations driven by design outperforming others significantly. However, many businesses still misunderstand the true value of design, often associating it with superficial aspects like visual aesthetics or a basic design thinking process. Design can positively impact various aspects within an organization by improving efficiency, reducing waste, and enhancing customer experiences.
Educating Organizations on Design Culture
Establishing a robust design culture within a tech organization involves defining design principles, implementing design systems, and integrating customer-driven insights into decision-making processes. Cultivating cross-functional teams, encouraging customer engagement, and showcasing design processes through regular showcases can help shift organizational mindsets towards valuing and integrating design effectively.
Transitioning Towards Advanced Design Maturity
In the journey of design leadership, the focus shifts towards scaling design maturity throughout the organization, beyond individual design leadership roles. The upcoming book emphasizes advancing design maturity to positively impact internal processes, employee experiences, and elevate the overall organizational design culture to drive holistic transformation.
Design leader and Thoughtworks alumnus Emma Carter recently published her second book, DesignedUp. In it, she explains how designers can win a seat at the leadership table inside technolology organizations and become effective evangelists and advocates for good design principles and practices.
In this episode of the Technology Podcast, Emma joins hosts Rebecca Parsons and Scott Shaw to discuss her new book and talks through some of the challenges designers face in even the most forward-thinking technology companies. She highlights that design is, today, far more than just UI design — it can, and should, touch many parts of an organization, ensuring that products and services are properly aligned with the aims, goals and needs of users.
You can find Emma's book on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/DesignedUp-Emma-Carter/dp/1032202017/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
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