Summary
You may have noticed that all is not well in the world. Caught between a pandemic, a civil rights reckoning and the spectre of global conflict - you still have to show up each day and lead your team. With so much happening, it's easy to forget that the scale of your impact doesn't only come from the tools, systems or processes that you implement, but also from the depth of the questions you ask of yourself, of your team, and of your users. Drawing from over 75 long-format interviews with some of the best and brightest design leaders, this talk explores some of the big questions facing the field, and how you can use the humble question to be a better leader. Warning: this talk may raise more questions than it provides answers for.
Key Insights
-
•
The COVID-19 lockdown disrupted Bedog's ambitious UX lab plans, forcing reflection on personal and professional resilience.
-
•
Global crises like systemic racism, political populism, and war provoke universal existential questions influencing design leadership.
-
•
Provocative questions can challenge the status quo but carry risks as seen in Socrates’ trial and death.
-
•
UX and design fields remain predominantly white and male, with significant underrepresentation of people of color and women.
-
•
Ethical dilemmas in design require designers to act as de facto ethicists, balancing business pressures with moral responsibility.
-
•
Amy Jimenez exemplifies the difficulty of standing up for ethical principles within large enterprises.
-
•
Successful problem-solving often benefits from mixed methods and respect for indigenous knowledge, as in the Easter Island moai example.
-
•
Changing the stories we tell ourselves about our challenges can empower us to act and find meaning, demonstrated by Dr. Susan Weinschenk’s cancer narrative.
-
•
Bad questions reinforce victimhood and limit potential; good questions foster curiosity, learning, and constructive change.
-
•
Design leaders should focus on creating their own tables and influence through expertise and collaborative respect rather than simply demanding inclusion.
Notable Quotes
"That night at 11:59 PM the entire nation of New Zealand would move into what was called a level 4 lockdown."
"Why was the universe doing this to me? That was a bad question."
"Socrates was known in Athenian society as a gadfly, a fly that bites livestock, for his overt and intentional interference with the Athenian power structure."
"Who do you see? Who do you not see? Why do you not see them?"
"We don’t have to restrict ourselves to playing the canary in the coal mine. We can design the harm out of our products before they’ve even taken flight."
"If only we could just get that seat at the table."
"They walked. The locals were most likely right."
"The stories we tell are framed by the questions we ask. Our stories repeated become our beliefs and our beliefs influence our behavior."
"I’m very fortunate. I have great medical care. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I am going to live my life to the fullest."
"Are the questions that you are asking and the stories that you are telling yourself serving you?"
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"Take time to connect and reflect before you start collaborating, not just dive into work immediately."
Emilia Åström Jim KalbachUnlock Your Team’s Intelligence with Collaboration Design
June 9, 2022
"Doing no harm is a core tenet of user experience research, whether or not you are trained in IRB processes."
Dr. Jamika D. BurgeBroad Strokes: Connecting Design, Research, and AI to the World Around Us
June 7, 2023
"We are the solution to preventing harmful AI outcomes like Robert's wrongful arrest."
Jay BustamanteNavigating the Ethical Frontier: DesignOps Strategies for Responsible AI Innovation
October 2, 2023
"Low vision users often invert colors and use magnification levels as high as 400 percent to reduce eye strain."
Sam ProulxSUS: A System Unusable for Twenty Percent of the Population
December 9, 2021
"Design operations is about being that resilient force on behalf of everyone else in your organization."
Dave MaloufTheme 3: Introduction and Provocation
January 8, 2024
"UX researchers should learn Python or R and how to leverage AI APIs to process unstructured data."
Lija Hogan Milan Mijatovic Sam Proulx Louis RosenfeldThree Years Out: Perspectives on the Near-Term Future of User Research
March 15, 2024
"If you target the right audience but can’t recruit them, you fail to capture the community’s true problems."
Noah BondRedefining truth and inclusivity: Navigating data ownership and ethical research in the age of disinformation
March 11, 2025
"Design is about making things tangible early, so stakeholders can see and believe in the work."
Charlotte Vorbeck Shahzma Esmail Edward Alton Sarah McArthur Ariel KennanPipeline to Civic Design
December 9, 2021
"Behavioral turbulence happens when flow breaks down, causing chaotic and unpredictable user interactions."
David SternbergUncovering the hidden forces shaping user behavior
July 17, 2025
