Shadow Design–Where Else is Design Happening in Your Organization?

Key Insights

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  Shadow design is prevalent in enterprises where non-designers perform significant design tasks due to scarcity of design resources.

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  The ROI argument for investing in design has become tired and often ineffective in convincing executives.

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  Measuring how much design work non-designers do can reveal substantial wasted effort, often equivalent to many full-time design roles.

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  Many people do not know how to effectively engage or collaborate with internal design teams, representing a solvable barrier.

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  Organizational design readiness varies widely, with most B2B companies stuck between ‘design aware’ and ‘design is just accepted without real investment.’

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  Even in teams with dedicated designers, product managers or engineers sometimes do design work when designers are overallocated or shifted elsewhere.

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  Shadow design teams often suffer from the Dunning-Kruger effect, where less skilled individuals overestimate their design abilities.

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  Democratization of design and research raises tensions about control and quality, requiring support systems to maintain standards.

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  Strategic design investments not only improve product quality but also increase engineering velocity by freeing engineers from design tasks.

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  A pragmatic approach to design advocacy is to show how current budgets are spent poorly rather than trying to justify ROI with abstract metrics.

Notable Quotes