The Values of Design
Summary
As designers, we have a core sense of our personal values and the value we bring to our users. Thinking about self promotion and finance can feel at odds with those values, but we do need to make sure our colleagues value our work, and that we're adding to the value of our company. By the end of our time together you should have answers to the question "how can I create more business impact, while still feeling like a designer?"
Key Insights
-
•
Personal values deeply influence how product and design professionals perceive and tolerate team dynamics and workflow decisions.
-
•
Explicitly articulating personal values can reveal blind spots and reduce workplace tension.
-
•
In large organizations, different teams may view 'the user' differently, requiring tailored framing of user value.
-
•
Translating qualitative design work into quantitative business metrics significantly improves stakeholder buy-in.
-
•
Users and customers are often distinct groups with differing needs and priorities, complicating product decisions.
-
•
Giving value first to your team and understanding what your manager is measured on fosters stronger collaboration and career growth.
-
•
Rigid attachment to preferred techniques can limit effective teamwork; learning others’ approaches promotes better outcomes.
-
•
Building relationships across teams, such as data or customer support, yields deeper context and better outcomes.
-
•
Organizational financial metrics, including valuation multiples, shape company growth demands and directly affect employee experiences.
-
•
Owning your full range of professional skills without diminishing parts of your craft increases your organizational influence.
Notable Quotes
"I wrote a blog post called Can We Talk about the PM Designer Tension almost 10 years ago."
"Sometimes the tension comes from conflicts in how we think about our values and how we think about value."
"You should think about what you uniquely will do because of your values that others might not tolerate."
"In one project, a design change required approval from 32 people, which clashed with my low value on authority."
"Different teams were thinking about users quite differently for the same product on the Windows phone."
"We increased conversion to starting a project by 50% by building a qualitative walkthrough at Kickstarter."
"There’s often a mismatch between the users designers think about and the customers the business considers."
"Think about what your manager is being rewarded for to figure out how to better support them and your team."
"If you find yourself feeling persecuted or on the drama triangle, you're probably not feeling valued by your team."
"Share price is actually a model of the expected value of all future income of a company."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"Design ops is a change leadership function because you have to influence people you often have no formal authority over."
Jon FukudaStorytelling for DesignOps
August 17, 2023
"By sitting at the table with sales and marketing, we can catch bias and produce more rigorous research."
Chris Geison Cristen Torrey Eric MahlstedtWhat is Research Strategy?: A Panel of Research Leaders Discuss this Emergent Question
March 4, 2021
"Processed language is like processed food; it damages our mind as processed food damages our body."
Himanshu BharadwajIf design had a heart
April 16, 2026
"If you want psychological safety, you have to start with self-awareness and deep listening."
Stephen AndersonPuzzled? How to Coordinate Humans for Complex Challenges
May 27, 2021
"We use this data not to dehumanize, but to elevate each person’s uniqueness and fairly incentivize performance."
John Paul de Guzman10k Screens Later: How We Became a Data-Driven Design Organization
September 24, 2024
"I believed we could do more — more for the company, customers, stakeholders, and ourselves if we had more agency."
Nalini KotamrajuResearch After UX
March 25, 2024
"Every meeting now should be treated as if it’s fully remote to avoid creating uneven hybrid experiences."
Jennifer Bolduc Diane Gregorio Emily DayWhat's involved with getting people back to work?: A panel discussion
July 1, 2021
"We use artifacts from the future to help us envision and live in the changes we hope to see."
Sarah BrooksTheme Three Intro
November 18, 2022
"When we solve accessibility problems, we create innovations that benefit everyone, not just people with disabilities."
Sam ProulxTo Boldly Go: The New Frontiers of Accessibility
March 11, 2022
