Discussion
Summary
The session includes several UX and product experts, including Ariel, Ross, Mark, and others, sharing rich insights on cross-organizational collaboration and design practices. Ariel details a comprehensive 75-page journey map he developed for a city government project, emphasizing the importance of creating shared documentation and safe spaces for policy conversations. Ross shares his transition from engineering to UX driven by user stories and empathy, while Mark explains how APIs help coordinate requests for design resources across large teams, ensuring that workload is manageable and transparent. The group discusses techniques for empathizing with higher-level stakeholders, including understanding how they’re measured and aligning design goals with their success metrics. They tackle maintaining continuity as teams and members change by recommending thorough handoff documents and horizontal roles overseeing core experiences. Agile challenges are addressed through dual-track agile methodologies and A/B testing, allowing iterative design in short sprints. The importance of including support teams in design feedback loops is highlighted, with suggestions for tagging support tickets for visibility. Ariel also speaks about building an internal community of practice and design kits to encourage civic service design culture. Additionally, small human gestures like sending thank you cards across silos prove effective in fostering empathy. The panel underscores making documentation accessible and integrating technical writers within UX teams. The conversation weaves in practical examples and cultural tactics from companies like Honeywell, HP, and government agencies, all focusing on bridging organizational silos to deliver better user-centered products.
Key Insights
-
•
A detailed journey map for government services can span 75 pages and serve as a critical shared internal document to build understanding across commissioners, staff, and providers, as Ariel described.
-
•
Successful collaboration in government requires designers to learn enough policy to engage as trusted peers, creating safe spaces to surface real issues and invite constructive change.
-
•
Ross transitioned from engineering to UX by discovering inspirational user stories in product feedback that generated empathy and motivation to improve user experience.
-
•
Mark’s team created lightweight 'APIs' for other teams to request UX resources, including tracking states like accepted, in progress, or rejected, helping manage demand and transparency.
-
•
Empathizing with stakeholders higher up the org involves understanding how they are measured and what success means for their role, enabling better alignment of design goals.
-
•
To maintain continuity across feature teams with turnover, special onboarding sessions and 'going away' documents are critical handoff rituals that save time and preserve context.
-
•
Dual-track agile separates design and product discovery (one track) from development sprints (another), giving designers more runway to iterate and validate ideas.
-
•
Including support teams in scrums or regular meetings improves visibility of design-related customer issues; tagging support tickets enables focused review of design feedback.
-
•
Simple gestures like sending physical thank you cards across organizational silos can foster empathy and build cross-team relationships beyond technology.
-
•
Making documentation and toolkits in plain language, avoiding jargon, broadens access for cross-disciplinary teams and elevates the value of information design within UX.
Notable Quotes
"The consolidated view is really the invitation in to help get people excited and also help them see that we've created documentation that didn't exist previously."
"As a designer and leader in this space, I've had to learn a lot about policy so I can come in and have really deep discussions with policy folks as a peer."
"I started just searching for product name to look for bugs, but then found inspirational stories that helped me build empathy for users."
"We created APIs so people can submit ideas or resource requests in a simple structure, and then track their status from accepted to rejected."
"When I talk to stakeholders, I try to understand how they are measured and what success means for their role in the company."
"When someone swaps out on a feature team, that event needs a special onboarding: briefings and whiteboard sessions to transfer knowledge."
"Dual track agile means you have the dev sprint track and a separate design/product track that leads the dev track by several cycles."
"Invite support people to scrums or monthly engineering reviews so design can get visibility into common customer issues."
"Sending real physical thank you cards across silos surprises people and builds empathy and openness beyond what technology can do."
"We wrote our toolkits in plain English so people understand the tactics without getting lost in jargon—they can learn the jargon later."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"If users have to look things up, they often won’t, so policies must be easy and fast to respond to."
Heidi TrostTo Protect People, You Have to Protect Information: A Human-Centered Design Approach to Cybersecurity
January 23, 2025
"High-fidelity maps often squash discussion. Rough maps invite it."
Joe ElmendorfShitty Maps: A Trojan Horse for Sensemaking
July 9, 2026
"Be honest with yourself: it won’t always be fun, it will be slow and full of blockers, but the impact is real."
Charlotte Vorbeck Shahzma Esmail Edward Alton Sarah McArthur Ariel KennanPipeline to Civic Design
December 9, 2021
"You’re going to absolutely love using the Rosenbot, our chatbot, and hey, it’s free."
Louis RosenfeldHow to use the Rosenbot
March 16, 2026
"Personas and journeys are all models we use in UX to manage complexity."
Scott PlewesWhy Isn't Your UX Approach Going Viral?: A Mathematical Model
March 28, 2023
"When I pressed enter it said product added to cart, but I had to check if it was actually the right product."
Samuel Proulx Laur BaekInclusive Research: Debunking Myths and Getting Started
March 12, 2025
"Statistics is another tool in our toolbox, part of a hierarchy of evidence that includes qualitative and quantitative methods."
Caroline Jarrett Erin WeigelHave fun with statistics?
December 12, 2024
"When you remove nonverbal cues from communication, messages get easily misinterpreted."
Jilanna WilsonDistributed Design Operations Management
October 23, 2019
"Connection means feeling seen, heard, and valued; that’s what creates psychological safety."
Alla WeinbergDesign Teams Need Psychological Safety: Here’s How to Create It
September 9, 2022
