Making the Invisible Visible: The most critical deliverable isn't always the design
Summary
Designers often create journey maps, service blueprints, prototypes, and models. But their greatest value may not be what they define about digital products—it may be what they reveal about organizations! This session explores how visual artifacts expose hidden assumptions, organizational blind spots, and unmet human needs, helping teams align on what's really important. In this moment of speedy AI-generated outputs, Robin Beers and Uday Gajendar argue that one of the designer's most enduring roles is creating the shared understanding that makes meaningful change possible.
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Making the Invisible Visible: The most critical deliverable isn't always the design
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