Key Insights

• •

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

• •

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

• •

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

• •

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

• •

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

• •

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

• •

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

• •

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

• •

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

• •

  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