What the Floor Buys the Ceiling
Summary
Tooling raises the floor by baking good design into automation. Done right, it also raises the ceiling, giving practitioners back time for the work that matters most: what customers can see, feel, and use. Through practical case studies of design teams in transformation, this talk explores what AI buys us when we pair speed with genuine care, and how teams can move faster without sacrificing intentionality, responsibility, or the human touch.
More Videos
"The peer review process is slow and gatekeeps change, so innovating from the margins is strategic."
Kristen Honey"Let’s Talk About Data and Crisis”: Public Digital Service Delivery = Open Data + Human Centered Design
November 18, 2021
"No matter what your contract says, once your data is in the cloud connected to an LLM, you have to accept the risk it could be exposed."
Kate Towsey Basel Fakhoury Oren Friedman Graham GardnerParticipant Recruitment and Management Tools
March 12, 2026
"Doing random pairing or 'donuts' could connect Civic designers from around the world for informal one-to-one exchanges."
Ariel KennanCivic Design in 2022
January 13, 2022
"Sometimes resources are available as soon as an hour or 30 minutes after the talk, like the team is working miracles."
Bria AlexanderDay 2 Welcome
September 24, 2024
"Procurement portals can be hard to navigate; act like you’re bidding and go through the user experience yourself."
Emily LessardRFPs Without Tears: Writing Inclusive RFPS that Don't Scare Away Talent
December 9, 2021
"I feel like I helped to create the environment that that came from, so I certainly have responsibility."
Jim KalbachPeace is waged with sticky notes: Mapping Real-World Experiences
June 14, 2018
"Principles give unity and organization to a product, system, or human experience, not just guidelines or rules of thumb."
Richard BuchananCreativity and Principles in the Flourishing Enterprise
June 15, 2018
"Being simple is extremely complex. Adding complexity is easy, but simplicity requires discipline and focus."
George Zhang Molly StevensUX Research Excellence Framework
March 11, 2021
"Researchers and participants cannot tell the same story because they occupy different locations of power."
Bilan HashiThe Tension Between Story Collecting and Story Telling in Research
March 10, 2021
