Rosenverse

This video is only accessible to Gold members. Log in or register for a free Gold Trial Account to watch.

Log in Register

Most conference talks are accessible to Gold members, while community videos are generally available to all logged-in members.

Panel: Collaboration Tools

Gold
Monday, November 6, 2017 • DesignOps Summit 2017
Share the love for this talk
Panel: Collaboration Tools
Speakers: Abby Covert and Tomer Sharon
Link:

Summary

We have all heard the old saying “communication is key” but as the landscape of technology widens so do the options we have for communication tools using that technology. To talk about the challenges and opportunities that our organizations face when solving the communication conundrum, we have invited three people working in three different areas where communication is key for organizations with designers: research insights, workflow management and design systems management. Facilitated by Abby Covert.

Key Insights

  • Design operations suffer from too many fragmented tools and need unified systems.

  • Users want collaborative tools that filter noise and surface only what's important.

  • Collaboration in companies requires control mechanisms such as approvals and private comments, contradicting the idea of anarchy.

  • Integration between design and development is hindered by translation losses between design and code.

  • True agile and cross-functional collaboration are rare due to team turnover and lack of trust.

  • Collaborative tools have democratized feedback, increasing ownership across teams.

  • Different roles like designers, engineers, and business analysts have distinct needs from design tools.

  • Customization of collaborative tools and workflows is essential to fit diverse team processes.

  • AI and design systems combined with research can enable automated, smarter design decisions.

  • Future collaboration tools should respect users' focus time and reduce constant interruptions.

Notable Quotes

"There are too many things all over the place. I would like to use my magic wand for making them one system."

"A lot of these tools bring more noise into people’s day to day lives. It’s really hard to stay involved and still find time to get your own job done."

"Collaboration is actually not anarchy in companies. There’s always this need for control."

"Translation is a traitor because meaning is lost in translation between design and code."

"The dream of cross-functional agile collaboration is there, but it’s quite hard to realize that because teams don’t have enough time to build trust."

"With collaborative tools, feedback has become a democratic process, and people feel more ownership of the project."

"Design is not only limited to designers. Business analysts and engineers can design too, supported by designers."

"The hardest thing is knowing when to stop talking about something and start building it."

"Eventually, I expect AI to help create designs by combining patterns from meta design systems and research, making design more about crafting experiences."

"I want my collaboration tool to be like the Nest thermostat of my workday, knowing when I’m heads down and when I’m open to communication."

Ask the Rosenbot
Yolanda Rankin
Black Feminist Epistemology as a Critical Framework for Equitable Design
2021 • Advancing Research 2021
Gold
Amy Gawronski Zuccaro
Advice for DesignOps Employee #1
2021 • DesignOps Summit 2021
Gold
Adrian Howard
Sturgeon’s Biases
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024
Gold
Lin Nie
When Thought-worlds Collide: Collaborating Between Research and Practice
2021 • Advancing Research 2021
Gold
Vitorio Miliano
Don’t call it AI: Turn words into numbers with quantitative ethnography
2026 • Advancing Research 2026
Conference
Jemma Ahmed
Theme 1 Intro
2026 • Advancing Research 2026
Conference
Sam Proulx
SUS: A System Unusable for Twenty Percent of the Population
2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold
Ellen Chisa
The Values of Design
2023 • Design in Product 2023
Gold
Tamara Hale
War Stories LIVE! Tamara Hale
2020 • Advancing Research 2020
Gold
Kelly Goto
Emotion Economy: Ethnography as Corporate Strategy
2015 • Enterprise UX 2015
Gold
Bob Baxley
Theme 4: Discussion
2024 • Enterprise Experience 2020
Gold
Megan Blocker
Day 2 Theme Panel
2025 • Advancing Research 2025
Gold
Billy Carlson
Tips to Utilize Wireframes to Tell an Effective Product Story
2023 • Enterprise UX 2023
Gold
Jose Coronado
People First - Design at JP Morgan
2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold
Joshua Graves
We Need To Talk: Managing Ludicrous Requests at Work (Part 3 of 3)
2025 • Rosenfeld Community
Sharon Banh
Reimagining research: What does the field need to grow? [Advancing Research Community Workshop Series]
2024 • Advancing Research Community

More Videos

Scher Foord

"Breaking down silos requires aligning people around a singular customer problem so they have to talk to each other."

Scher Foord Corey Greenltch Sarah Rowe

Turn the Ship Around: How to Apply Design Thinking Across Your Organization

June 10, 2021

Kara Kane

"Openly sharing stories helps us learn from those who came before us and carve new paths."

Kara Kane

Theme One Intro

November 16, 2022

Daniel Gloyd

"Psychological warmth and physical warmth activate the same part of the brain, the insula."

Daniel Gloyd

Warming the User Experience: Lessons from America's first and most radical human-centered designers

May 9, 2024

Samuel Proulx

"Disability isn’t a problem with a person; it’s something that happens when systems fail to enable them."

Samuel Proulx

Invisible barriers: Why accessible service design can’t be an afterthought

December 3, 2024

Harry Max

"Publishing an explicit list of priorities reduces noise and helps coordinate work across groups."

Harry Max Jim Meyer

Prioritization for Leaders (2nd of 3 seminars)

June 27, 2024

Tess Dixon

"It’s the individuals who choose whether and how they take advantage of the opportunities you create."

Tess Dixon

C'mon Get Happy

September 29, 2021

Phil Hesketh

"Automated testing tools saved us several days of manual testing and helped prioritize work more effectively."

Phil Hesketh

Designing Accessible Research Workflows

September 29, 2021

Shipra Kayan

"We stuck with NPS because it was a pure metric with a long history we could trend, instead of muddying things with loyalty or revenue."

Shipra Kayan

How we Built a VoC (Voice of the Customer) Practice at Upwork from the Ground Up

September 30, 2021

Hugh Dubberly

"You don’t think of raising a child or teaching a student as solving a problem, it’s an ongoing process—and so is design today."

Hugh Dubberly

Problems with Problems: Reconsidering the Frame of Designing as Problem-Solving

June 19, 2019