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Problem solving is only the tip of the iceberg for design. Beneath the surface, design is a powerful tool for problem framing, ensuring that what is being addressed is worth tackling. Go deeper still, and you discover that the core opportunity for design is to inject humanism into work. The best designed products and services don’t simply solve problems — they connect deeply with people.
we prefer the definition from noted user experience expert Jared Spool, who wrote, “Design is the rendering of intent.” He continues, “The designer imagines an outcome and puts forth activities to make that outcome real.”[7] This might seem vague or abstract, but that’s purposeful — it points out that “design” is happening all the time, in a variety of contexts, whether or not we think of it as that. For a company to better deliver on its own intentions, it benefits from incorporating mindful design throughout its activities.
Figure 2-2. Design plays a role throughout product development and delivery All Design Is Service Design
Figure 2-5. Definition occurs once in a while, and execution occurs iteratively against the established plan
Design can no longer be a specification that is handed off, built, and never seen again. It needs to be embedded within the strategy and development processes, and its practitioners must be deeply familiar with the company’s mission, vision, and practices. To make this work with an outsourced partner is possible, but very expensive, and raises concerns about an external firm’s alignment with the company’s values and ideals. It’s simply more straightforward to build in-house design competencies that are organizationally and operationally conjoined with functions such as marketing, engineering,
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user’s experience is the emergent outcome of numerous contributions, including design, but also engineering (technical performance has a huge impact on user experience), marketing (how expectations are managed affects the user experience), and customer care (a bad experience can become a good one if handled well). If a single team is labeled as the primary keeper of the user experience, that absolves other departments from concerning themselves with it. User experience must be everyone’s responsibility.
There are too many moving parts, too much specialized knowledge necessary to fully appreciate a situation. Designers can no longer rely solely on the hard skills of their practice and craft to succeed. They need to facilitate the creative output of others throughout the organization, tapping into a resource often left dormant. If working in a hospital setting, get nurses, technicians, and doctors to ideate around their specific problems. In a call center, have the customer service representatives pitch how they think things should be. The point isn’t to be bound to the input from other
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The rest of the organization will likely act in a way that unintentionally discourages quality. People outside of the design team don’t understand what it takes to maintain a high quality bar, and design teams are asked to do too many things with too few people in too little time.
“Real artists ship.”
Great design work takes space — places to collaborate, whiteboards for sketching and ideation, walls to show work. And those spaces should be permanent, places where the team works and sees their work all around them. Not only does this encourage continual engagement from the team itself, such spaces enable people outside the team to quickly connect with the work. It literally demonstrates openness and transparency.
Figure 4-2. In the Centralized Partnership, there is a distinct design team that has committed connections to the different product/feature/business teams. The team includes a team lead (TL), senior designers (S), other designers (D), and a content strategist (CS). The team lead and senior designers have direct relationships with product managers (P). Experiences are treated more holistically, as the entire team understands the breadth of what is being delivered.
Teams range in size from 2 to 7 members. Seven people can take on a large program — consider a generous designer-to-developer ratio of 1 to 5, we’re talking about a program that requires 35 engineers! If it seems the team should be bigger than 7, it’s likely its mandate has gotten too big. Split the team into two, each with a sharper focus.
In short, the best team leads are a combination of coach, diplomat, and salesman. And they are folks who, through experience, find they can span the conceptual scale from 1,000 feet all the way down to 1 foot. They oversee the end-to-end experience, ensuring that user needs are understood, business objectives are clear, design solutions are appropriate, and the final quality is high.
In order for a team to successfully collaborate with others, it’s important to understand how the rest of the company is organized. However, it’s insufficient to have design teams simply reflect that structure. Organizations grow and evolve over time, and the reasons for how they arrive at a particular structure are varied (e.g., acquisitions, firings, failed initiatives) and might not make sense for the team. A design organization that is not wedded to the structure of the broader company can help maintain a stable customer experience when the inevitable reorganizations occur.
Figure 4-4. Design teams map onto product teams in such a way that they can support the end-to-end user experience
Figure 4-5. Three smaller design teams (Discovery, Purchase, and Post-Purchase) make up the larger Buyer Design Team
one Design Program Manager for every 10–15 designers. The charter of this team is to make things go and to ensure that the rest of the design organization as effective as possible.
This is explicitly not project management although many of the responsibilities are built off a strong project management foundation. Project management should be cross-functional, coordinating across the different disciplines needed to deliver. Though Design Program Managers are often in conversation with the delivery people (whether they’re called agile coaches, project managers, or delivery managers), they themselves are not responsible for delivery. Within a design team, that responsibility falls squarely on the design lead. This means design leads must do some of their own lightweight
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It turns out that more important than reporting lines is that the design team: Is a single operating entity Has a mandate to infuse their work through the entire customer experience Has leadership empowered to shape the team and its activities to deliver on that mandate
What is a Head of Design? What does that person do?
“UX Design” is not appropriate because it’s too vague, and user experience should be everyone’s responsibility. UX Researcher is appropriate, though, because this role seeks to understand the totality of the user’s experience, and the insights drawn from such research will inform work across marketing, sales, product, and customer care, as well as design. The key responsibilities
Operational leadership is a combination of very little things and very big things, all in the interest of optimizing the design organization’s effectiveness. The little things are what the rest of the team sees, in terms of how communications are handled, which tools are supported, how work is scheduled, how team meetings are run. The big things happen behind the scenes, and involve interactions with a company’s core operations teams such as finance, HR, IT, and facilities.
For every new design team, add a UX Researcher. For every three teams, add a Service Designer, Design Program Manager, and a Design Director. The only major role introduced after this point is the Director of Design Program Management, who joins once the organization has about 60 people,
use the ratio as a secondary factor, an indicator of the overall product development organization’s health.
discussions with funding sources remain focused on output (“For this amount of money, we can deliver these programs with this impact”) and not headcount.
Generally, what we have learned is that designers want to do great work, work with interesting people, and get paid fairly for it, pretty much in that order.
Keep the focus on activities (conducting user research, designing structures, leading teams, coordinating across functions, crafting a new visual language, prototyping design solutions), and try to avoid discussing process documentation (personas, wireframes, mood boards, comps, etc.).
Approximate A/B testing by trying different messages, emphases, and ordering. Until the job is filled, revisit the posting regularly.
have the initial contact done by a member of the design team. It’s best for it to be someone at a similar level — junior designers reaching out to other junior designers, senior to senior, manager to manager.
Small design-focused shops In our experience, these have been the best firms to work with. With just one, two, or maybe three recruiters, these firms provide high levels of service, getting to know you, your business, and what you’re looking for. They also actively network with their local design community, and understand who is available and what they’re looking for. They pride themselves in only proposing candidates who will likely be brought in to interview — no onslaught of résumés and portfolios to wade through. Given their higher touch approach and their smaller size, no one such shop
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host at the company’s offices, if there is a gathering space suitable for a presentation and it can fit a decent number of people.
look instead for the meta-qualities that will make someone successful — are they articulate, pleasant, and passionate? If it feels like there might be compatibility, and if time allows, have the candidate walk through one or two projects and describe their involvement on them.
the second screen. This screen returns focus to their work, skills, and execution. The interviewer should dig deeply, and engage with a critical eye. Have one of the design team’s harsher critics conduct this conversation. The purpose is to ensure that only qualified candidates are brought in for the Day of Interviews,
A teaching opportunity emerges when design leadership’s assessment of a candidate’s work differs from their team members. This encourages explanations of what leadership is looking for, and helps team members develop and refine their review skills.
“no.” Design tests set up an unhealthy power dynamic in the interview environment, when instead you should be fostering collegiality.
In most situations where there’s a split, the easiest decision is the same as the right decision — do not hire. Given how costly it is to make a hiring mistake, “better safe than sorry” is often an appropriate strategy.
Don’t let that weirdness be a turn-off. In fact, lean in to your team’s weirdness. If a design team can’t bring weirdness into a company, who can?
contract-to-hire, where someone comes on board in a contract capacity (typically for three months), after which a decision is made to keep the person on full-time or to cut ties.
Recruiting and hiring take a lot of time. There are no silver bullets that make it easy, speed it up, or guarantee a higher hit rate. It’s work. Disregarding the process and guidelines shared in this chapter will lead it to feeling not only like a marathon, but one through mud, wearing ankle weights. A candidate accepting an offer provides a brief respite from this toil. Celebrate, then get ready for them joining the team (onboarding is discussed in Chapter 8). But recognize that even with the opening filled, the process of recruiting is never finished.
Cross-functional meetings Though this may seem a minor detail, what role this person plays in cross-functional meetings (i.e., with the product development team, or shareouts to executives) is a strong indicator of their influence and visiblity.
Soft skills Working as a designer is just as much about working as designing. There are interpersonal skills that enable becoming a reliable and productive member of a team. Leadership skills As designers advance, it is important that they not only develop their design craft, but embrace leadership skills that will help their ideas and positions be realized.
To succeed means knowing when to set aside design and focus on the interpersonal aspects of work. No longer is it simply about practicing their craft. They acquire new leadership skills and develop a serious shift in mindset. They must appreciate how all the core design skills, not just those they directly practice, work together to produce a great experience. Understanding the business context in which they’re operating becomes important in driving better design decisions.
Managers need to play an active role in helping team members navigate this shift.
Team members deepen their responsibilities to the team in such matters as recruiting, hiring, and developing culture. This includes handling phone screens, conducting Career Day visits at colleges, and being part of on-site interview panels.
Leaders gain leverage through coaching less experienced designers, improving their practices. They also garner respect from their team, both through the demonstration of their mastery, and in their willingness to spend time helping others.
The leader’s success in this skill is not just in the development of a vision — the corporate world is littered with concept videos, detailed mockups, and other scenarios of possible futures. Their success is instead shown in how the vision catalyzes action, inspiring the people within a company to charge forward because they want to live in a world where that vision is made a reality.
As an employee class, designers were millennials before there were millennials, and much of what is being written in the business press about new management practices has long applied to them.
Team members may become frustrated working with others, particularly across functions, who don’t understand their contribution, or a team lead might have trouble getting executives to appreciate a proposed solution. A common tactic designers take at these times is to try to design their way out of the problem, doubling down on the work. This proves ineffective, because the problem isn’t the design, but how people communicate.
small feedback frequently,
Designers work best when they can bring their whole selves to their work, and not just behave as an employee. When managing designers, seek to understand who they are outside of work.
