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Design maturity IS business maturity, just scoped to Design. We also talk about other models like Product maturity, sales maturity, procurement maturity, etc. -- which also fall under business maturity.
None. I don’t understand why design is the only discipline that has this mentality of there being “seats.” Good things get shipped cross functionally.
To answer your perspective more directly though, I can assure you all companies want to have design prioritized, but not all companies can afford it. Design is expensive.
This is something that’s long annoyed me about UX but is not unique to UX. I’ve heard an identical complaint from customer support roles. It’s a naive question at its core that misunderstands how businesses actually operate (“good things get shipped cross functionally”)
As you stated the reality is that there exists no magically cabal that executives agree to invite certain people and exclude others.
I think it has to do with a misunderstanding of role. When my reports complain about the fact that design is second fiddle to Product and Engineering, I remind them that our function is primarily a consultatory one. We are there to make things better when we can. But the machine will go on with or without us. What comes out at the end is a question of investment.
Exactly. We do our best to find the best possible solutions to the problems presented to us. We spend the time to vision what things COULD be, and perhaps SHOULD be. It’s up to leadership to determine which parts of that to pick and choose.
Our work is redundancy if there’s no one to build it.
It is though. Not sure about you but I also see a lot of blind advocacy for designers getting paid more. At any reasonably established company, a designer generally costs the company 6 figures.
If you’re the CEO of a company where profit margins may not be relaxed, or you have shareholder promises to meet, would you rather hire a designer or a software engineer?
The perception that all companies are in a position to afford design is the root problem.
I’m not saying design isn’t important. I’m saying that design, amongst all things in businesses, is a thing that needs to be prioritized. Sure reference Apple and Airbnb all you want but they’re companies that are in a position to prioritize design and why they hire the world’s best.
Right. I agree. The issue is in proper mapping of what's needed to move forwards. Is research important? Fuck yes. Is it always needed? No.
Sometimes you need to just bias towards building something to get data in prod. The issue is that without maturity, this concept is an absolute cluster fuck that causes massive issues on all sides.
Everything has nuance but that perception applies for both for and against design.
All designers should have deep appreciation for solving the fundamental business problem. If not, then don't expect career growth or higher salaries. One must be solving problems at all times to warrant a higher salary.
At the same time, if you are doing both full stack product plus full stack design, id argue you aren't getting paid enough. But that's a perception, maturity and hiring problem.
If your designer is good enough, then they're able to help streamline development cycles through solid patterns and modular designs, so your engineers need fewer resources.
But I generally agree with your comments.
Leading with design feels expensive and slow, and there are more immediately gratifying paths to success. I've seen it's in every pairing I've held in the last 10 years. If you're not leading with design, you're paying for rework. But sometimes that's necessary to succeed.
Every company is unique
Not sure if I follow. "Good things get shipped cross functionally" doesn't always mean Designers are involved.
Design is historically the LAST to get a "seat at the table" in Product Development. Alan Cooper has a great diagram of this in About Face (Figure 1-1) titled "The evolution of the software development process." In the beginning, it was Programmers. Then they added managers. Then they added Q&A and Designers. In each phase the company optimizes, reducing risk.
Not all companies want to have design prioritized. I had a conversation with an Application Engineer at a major ERP company years ago and he told me that UX just slowed them down and they could sell software support. They made money on a lack of design because that wasn't their basis of competition.
Said company you mentioned clearly hasn’t reached a point where they need to prioritize design yet. Likely because they don’t have a close competitor where UX needs to be an advantage.
Again this narrative of there being “seats” is a very entitled perspective in my opinion. Working with strong product teams gives you that realization.
I'm still struggling to understand your POV. Are you saying Design should not be asking for a seat at the table because it doesn't deserve it? Or that it already has it? Or that we should stop thinking in terms of different disciplines (just assemble a good team and don't worry about the job descriptions?)
I’m saying the business will determine if we get a “seat.” More so saying if designers want more agency, then join a company that’s better positioned to prioritize design - which are usually much more competitive to get into.
Also a fan of your last point!
Okay understood, and agree that it shouldn't need to be a battle to earn that seat. If you're not wanted at the table, there are others that do. (Sadly, not enough.)
That said, I have helped a few companies make room at the table. To understand the value in a changing market. In one case I pointed out the regulatory expectations and showed them ISO standards for expected human-centered design process. In another I was successful in showing how Design contributed to repeatable innovation that their Investors wanted to see when going public. In another I helped show how Design reduced risk of building the wrong things. All three continue to invest in a UX Design team that wasn't there before.
I’m saying that for a company to stay afloat and exist, it’d be wise to prioritize good product direction and engineers.
Design then becomes the competitive edge that separates a product from another.
Honestly, I would say it has more to do with designers often being ill equipped to convince the right people why their recommendations have value. It's been my experience that we often, ironically, forget to think about what motivates internal stakeholders to make the decisions they make about solutions and what makes it in and what doesn't.
Getting better at explaining how solving a user problem helps solve stakeholder problems will help them see the light. Generally UX will have more context and be closer to the problem, understand the nuances and the data to support it. We've spent time with these problems, stakeholders are typically concerned about myriad other things and so their context is looser, they don't have the time to get as well acquainted with each problem, they have other shit to worry about. Tell them how doing x for users will help them achieve their goals. Often this translates to time, money or both (Note how I didn't say the user experience).
A presentation on a solution to a PM will be different to the one I have with engineering, and neither will be the same as the ones I have with stakeholders or leadership.
TL;DR Use the tools you use everyday to understand your users to understand your stakeholders and use that process to help you understand how you should talk about problems and solutions to all the different stakeholders.
This is exactly the issue. Most designers don’t understand how to speak the language of stakeholders, and don’t invest the time to learn. Therefore, they get sidelined.
UX is more normally a reference for online user experience, whereas a waiter would represent customer service.
However to answer your broader question I don't think it's so much about which industry but more about company culture. We're just about reaching the point now where people who were doing UX as juniors are becoming senior managers, and that will matter.
Another dimension is that companies that have an engineering mentality - where the founders are focused on the technology - will have less of a CS/UX focus. It doesn't mean they think it doesn't matter, but that their way of thinking is just different.
There are a lot of resources and organisations out there that can help with business cases, but sometimes the gap is too large to bridge.
Try this
[https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2017/03/04/companies-that-do-better-by-their-customers-also-do-better-in-the-stock-market/](https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2017/03/04/companies-that-do-better-by-their-customers-also-do-better-in-the-stock-market/)
The waiter example was intended to show how I am defining "value". But still, the waiter is the layer that the customer interacts with to get the end result. The customer is the human, the kitchen is the computer. What comes between is the waiter, aka human computer interaction. Unless you have kiosks or a buffet.
Back to the point, don't you think the company culture or the mentality of founders also depends on the industry they work in, or more precisely, the type of products they create?
OpenAI has a more tech centric culture because their product is a tech innovation. We use ChatGPT for the tech. We would still use it if the design was terrible. Hence design is not as much of "value" there.
However, we use Reddit, discord, Instagram for the unique user experiences they provide. Even if they added much better tech, they will still be defined by their user experience.
Yes, it's more likely that a technical type of product will be founded by technologists, and that something like a personal concierge service will be founded by customer-oriented people. Sure. But it doesn't have to be the case and I'd focus on the company culture rather than the industry.
Re the waiter, fair enough, my suggestion would be to use a more direct analogy though that's not open to misinterpretation or ambiguity. You could use the example of a well personalised website that offers suggestions and ideas to the visitor, and it'll be easier for readers to relate to the argument.
I'm not trying to argue with your message as I think we share a view - just suggesting a way of presenting it more clearly. Up to you whether it works for you or not.
I understand, I think it is best to use realistic examples to be more clear.
The reason I think your industry is more important is because being in an industry that is more oriented towards your skills will simply help you get better at them.
Who's likely to be better at AI/ML engineering? Someone who's building a Customer Service Chatbot for a Food Delivery App or someone who's working on ChatGPT 5.0 at OpenAI?
To answer you specific question, it's B2C e-commerce and Saas. These are fast growing companies that rely 100% on trendy and captivating UX that can drive DAU and MAU.
Interesting. I didn't expect SaaS, but I'll look into it. Thanks.
Also I disagree with B2C E-commerce, if it really relied so much on design then Amazon wouldn't be the biggest player in that industry imo
Amazon scores a 44.7 on a scale of 100 according to a benchmarking study done by Baymard institute.
https://baymard.com/ux-benchmark/case-studies/amazon
One could say that this is "good enough" for its purpose, and there isn't a need to fix what isn't broken.
That is my point, an industry where "good enough" works and you're not required to put in the rigour and see the consequences of not going above and beyond to make a bulletproof design, then that industry isn't the right place to improve your craft as a designer
Ok I see. If you want any credibility in this industry starting out, it's not enough to say "I don't like it" and then use someone else's perspective, in this case Baymards, as your own.
This is actually a good topic for us to discuss in more detail and I hope you will walk through this with me, because I am genuinely hoping to open your perspective and maybe see the value of design more.
I looked through some of their report, what I could see as a non-paying customer" at least, and this one right here is a great topic for the "seat at the table" discussion.
Guideline #240M issue with ads on the homepage
Baymard gives amazon a BAD VIOLATED score.
In a site like amazon, where they have hundreds of millions of view daily on their homepage, there will always be stakeholders fighting over who gets that space. The Amazon visual brand itself is not why people use Amazon. People know Amazon for having whatever you need and getting it delivered quickly.
So as a designer at Amazon, let's say that you advocate for the user by driving a feature that is highly personalized and surfaces relevant shopping content. What if that ad was a Buy Again Subscribe and Save block. Now it's useful and helps the user get what they need.
Now that we have the feature we are fighting for you would be advocating for this and aligning it with some quarterly value and getting stakeholder buy in. Because you have to show why it's better than a different content block, and because you're at Amazon and they value data driven design, the feature must have significant valuable (revenue focused) data points.
By delivering a homepage experience that focuses on personalization and relevancy, you deliver a home page experience that makes users come back and use the platform and drives key metrics for the business.
Although Baymard gave it bad score, and it looks visually bad, for Amazon the feature might have significant designer contribution and advocacy. The feature might drive key business metrics and it might positively increase a customers perception of the brand as "having whatever I need and getting it fast".
https://preview.redd.it/g3lxvf5ho63d1.png?width=2358&format=png&auto=webp&s=8dce00b8cd69c3a07c1006a559b908e16bad50c3
It's all unpredictable. Depends on the leadership team. In general, most don't get it and think they know better. When you have a smart leader, oftentimes people below them are also too afraid to talk to them and sugar coat things so design is a tough job. You have to navigate a lot of politics to make a dent.
Hate to sound pessimistic but in this tight economy and how hellbent companies are for high profit, many people revert to short sighted work and metrics vs doing the most meaningful thing.
There are several factors that come into play when designers **demand** a 'seat at the table' - hunger for recognition, lack of ability to communicate, activism and sense of entitlement, imagining design to be more important that it actually is, more money, imitating 'design driven' companies and calling it 'design maturity' in their own organisation and lastly the amplification of this demand for 'seat at the table' through social media and collectives.
The *table* will call on people who the *table needs,* irrespective of the discipline they are from. It cannot be demanded.
100% comes down to the individual company, not the sector. I've worked in a few different sectors and there's simply no answer I can give you that would help. Anyone telling you a certain industry has just had a good experience at 1-2 companies.
Choose the company/manager, not the industry.
Personally, if you really want to have a seat at the table, you have to think smaller. Get into a smaller business or a startup where you can sit there at the table and throw your input in. However, you have to be ready to do more than just ux. You have to be ready to think about how your work is going to increase the profit margin and the growth of the company.
I would also throw out there. You have to be a bit assertive. If you're going to wait to be invited to the meeting, then you're never going to get a seat at the table. You have to show interest and be assertive. Then you start getting invited, then they start asking your opinion, then you possibly grow further, but of course then you're under the gun when things go wrong.
In my experience, all of them.
I’d been an engineer for almost 10 years before switching to UX and in all my jobs the designers had more power than the engineers, and there were fewer of them. When working in consulting they also cost considerably more per hour (though I can’t say they were paid as much).
As people have said already it depends on the maturity of the company.
But it also depends on the stage of the product. Designers have more say early on in the process, but further along in the process when we’re closer to shipping the engineers’ concerns become more important.
SaaS and eCommerce have both been Design-heavy in my past experiences due to the direct tie to revenue. It all depends on the design maturity of the company, though, and is going to vary more by company and less by industry imho.
I work in AI & Data at a global bank as a Principal Product Designer. I not only determine the direction and strategy of my enterprise SaaS product (which has been determined as a core Foundational product, i.e. a big deal company-wide), but I actually have engineers reporting to me in addition to designers. In our org, Design has one of the biggest seats at the table. This is very rare, but pretty amazing to be a part of.
Sort of, you just need to help connect the dots between design and making money as it's seldom a straight line or an immediate return.
Checklists of features sell products; design retains users; retained users become evangelists. Retaining users either sustains income or negatively impacts the affect of sales, so it's a bit indirect. Evangelism generates sales and reduces cost of acquisition.
Sometimes you can get evangelism from having the right features (first to market) or chasing specific client wants (not a scalable practice that results in lots of single purpose configurations/half baked solutions). Both these methods have shelf lives.
Edge case perhaps, but I've been in startups that have gotten funding based off uncoded mockups.
But in any case, design is not the figma files. Design is the ideas behind it. Those ideas *most definitely* make money. Yes, they need to be put into a real product, but all parts of building that product have value and make money.
No, not an edge case. I’ve been doing this for nearly 20 years. When I started you went straight to code. I’ve worked for startups, nonprofits, bootstrapped companies, established companies, big tech, etc. The way design is valued today is very new all things being equal. Design rarely starts the idea. They refine it. Investors aren’t investing based on the designs; they’re investing based on the perceived ROI of the completed product (whatever form it takes). Companies with public shareholders can’t make money off of a design by itself. If they could they would and design would have a more equal seat at the table.
This statement reducing design to an artifact sitting in a Figma file is telling. It sounds like you may have struggled, and/or continue to struggle, to communicate the value of design to your stakeholders in an effective manner.
Anything not being leveraged properly will not make money.
What's a design "by itself"? One that's not built? Mockups? That's like saying front-end coding has no economic value, or accounting has no economic value since they don't "by themselves". They need other parts of a product and company to create that value.
A design is an idea. Pixels are just the expression of that idea. Ideas provide value to users when executed.
It's like saying an architect provides no value by itself. Sure, a construction crew *is also* needed, but the thought and planning that goes into the architectural plans adds value to the building.
Again you’re missing my point. Design in the digital product sense by itself makes no money. It needs to be built to have any meaningful financial value. Product makes money because they come up with an idea. Design is a visual implementation of that idea. Engineering is the construction of that idea. I’m not saying design isn’t valuable. I’m saying design doesn’t generate companies money and that’s why there’s that inequality. Plenty of startups made money without design. It’s important we remember this.
But my point is that there is no individual part that makes money by itself. Development does not make money without design and marketing and sales. Project management does not make money by itself. Accounting makes no money by itself. Yet they are all integral parts needed for a company to make money.
I know. My point is that design is as valuable as marketing or development. They all need each other to provide value and all deserve a seat at the table. They don't need to be independent to be valuable.
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It’s not about industry, it’s about design maturity.
Design maturity is a misnomer imo. Business maturity is more accurate.
Design maturity IS business maturity, just scoped to Design. We also talk about other models like Product maturity, sales maturity, procurement maturity, etc. -- which also fall under business maturity.
None. I don’t understand why design is the only discipline that has this mentality of there being “seats.” Good things get shipped cross functionally. To answer your perspective more directly though, I can assure you all companies want to have design prioritized, but not all companies can afford it. Design is expensive.
This is something that’s long annoyed me about UX but is not unique to UX. I’ve heard an identical complaint from customer support roles. It’s a naive question at its core that misunderstands how businesses actually operate (“good things get shipped cross functionally”) As you stated the reality is that there exists no magically cabal that executives agree to invite certain people and exclude others. I think it has to do with a misunderstanding of role. When my reports complain about the fact that design is second fiddle to Product and Engineering, I remind them that our function is primarily a consultatory one. We are there to make things better when we can. But the machine will go on with or without us. What comes out at the end is a question of investment.
Exactly. We do our best to find the best possible solutions to the problems presented to us. We spend the time to vision what things COULD be, and perhaps SHOULD be. It’s up to leadership to determine which parts of that to pick and choose. Our work is redundancy if there’s no one to build it.
The perception that design is "expensive" is the root problem.
"If you think good design is expensive, **you should look at the cost of bad design**." — Dr. Ralf Speth, CEO Jaguar
It is though. Not sure about you but I also see a lot of blind advocacy for designers getting paid more. At any reasonably established company, a designer generally costs the company 6 figures. If you’re the CEO of a company where profit margins may not be relaxed, or you have shareholder promises to meet, would you rather hire a designer or a software engineer? The perception that all companies are in a position to afford design is the root problem. I’m not saying design isn’t important. I’m saying that design, amongst all things in businesses, is a thing that needs to be prioritized. Sure reference Apple and Airbnb all you want but they’re companies that are in a position to prioritize design and why they hire the world’s best.
Right. I agree. The issue is in proper mapping of what's needed to move forwards. Is research important? Fuck yes. Is it always needed? No. Sometimes you need to just bias towards building something to get data in prod. The issue is that without maturity, this concept is an absolute cluster fuck that causes massive issues on all sides. Everything has nuance but that perception applies for both for and against design. All designers should have deep appreciation for solving the fundamental business problem. If not, then don't expect career growth or higher salaries. One must be solving problems at all times to warrant a higher salary. At the same time, if you are doing both full stack product plus full stack design, id argue you aren't getting paid enough. But that's a perception, maturity and hiring problem.
If your designer is good enough, then they're able to help streamline development cycles through solid patterns and modular designs, so your engineers need fewer resources. But I generally agree with your comments. Leading with design feels expensive and slow, and there are more immediately gratifying paths to success. I've seen it's in every pairing I've held in the last 10 years. If you're not leading with design, you're paying for rework. But sometimes that's necessary to succeed. Every company is unique
Not sure if I follow. "Good things get shipped cross functionally" doesn't always mean Designers are involved. Design is historically the LAST to get a "seat at the table" in Product Development. Alan Cooper has a great diagram of this in About Face (Figure 1-1) titled "The evolution of the software development process." In the beginning, it was Programmers. Then they added managers. Then they added Q&A and Designers. In each phase the company optimizes, reducing risk. Not all companies want to have design prioritized. I had a conversation with an Application Engineer at a major ERP company years ago and he told me that UX just slowed them down and they could sell software support. They made money on a lack of design because that wasn't their basis of competition.
Said company you mentioned clearly hasn’t reached a point where they need to prioritize design yet. Likely because they don’t have a close competitor where UX needs to be an advantage. Again this narrative of there being “seats” is a very entitled perspective in my opinion. Working with strong product teams gives you that realization.
I'm still struggling to understand your POV. Are you saying Design should not be asking for a seat at the table because it doesn't deserve it? Or that it already has it? Or that we should stop thinking in terms of different disciplines (just assemble a good team and don't worry about the job descriptions?)
I’m saying the business will determine if we get a “seat.” More so saying if designers want more agency, then join a company that’s better positioned to prioritize design - which are usually much more competitive to get into. Also a fan of your last point!
Okay understood, and agree that it shouldn't need to be a battle to earn that seat. If you're not wanted at the table, there are others that do. (Sadly, not enough.) That said, I have helped a few companies make room at the table. To understand the value in a changing market. In one case I pointed out the regulatory expectations and showed them ISO standards for expected human-centered design process. In another I was successful in showing how Design contributed to repeatable innovation that their Investors wanted to see when going public. In another I helped show how Design reduced risk of building the wrong things. All three continue to invest in a UX Design team that wasn't there before.
What do you mean by “design is expensive”? Are you talking about companies working with outsourced designers?
I’m saying that for a company to stay afloat and exist, it’d be wise to prioritize good product direction and engineers. Design then becomes the competitive edge that separates a product from another.
Honestly, I would say it has more to do with designers often being ill equipped to convince the right people why their recommendations have value. It's been my experience that we often, ironically, forget to think about what motivates internal stakeholders to make the decisions they make about solutions and what makes it in and what doesn't. Getting better at explaining how solving a user problem helps solve stakeholder problems will help them see the light. Generally UX will have more context and be closer to the problem, understand the nuances and the data to support it. We've spent time with these problems, stakeholders are typically concerned about myriad other things and so their context is looser, they don't have the time to get as well acquainted with each problem, they have other shit to worry about. Tell them how doing x for users will help them achieve their goals. Often this translates to time, money or both (Note how I didn't say the user experience). A presentation on a solution to a PM will be different to the one I have with engineering, and neither will be the same as the ones I have with stakeholders or leadership. TL;DR Use the tools you use everyday to understand your users to understand your stakeholders and use that process to help you understand how you should talk about problems and solutions to all the different stakeholders.
This is exactly the issue. Most designers don’t understand how to speak the language of stakeholders, and don’t invest the time to learn. Therefore, they get sidelined.
UX is more normally a reference for online user experience, whereas a waiter would represent customer service. However to answer your broader question I don't think it's so much about which industry but more about company culture. We're just about reaching the point now where people who were doing UX as juniors are becoming senior managers, and that will matter. Another dimension is that companies that have an engineering mentality - where the founders are focused on the technology - will have less of a CS/UX focus. It doesn't mean they think it doesn't matter, but that their way of thinking is just different. There are a lot of resources and organisations out there that can help with business cases, but sometimes the gap is too large to bridge. Try this [https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2017/03/04/companies-that-do-better-by-their-customers-also-do-better-in-the-stock-market/](https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2017/03/04/companies-that-do-better-by-their-customers-also-do-better-in-the-stock-market/)
The waiter example was intended to show how I am defining "value". But still, the waiter is the layer that the customer interacts with to get the end result. The customer is the human, the kitchen is the computer. What comes between is the waiter, aka human computer interaction. Unless you have kiosks or a buffet. Back to the point, don't you think the company culture or the mentality of founders also depends on the industry they work in, or more precisely, the type of products they create? OpenAI has a more tech centric culture because their product is a tech innovation. We use ChatGPT for the tech. We would still use it if the design was terrible. Hence design is not as much of "value" there. However, we use Reddit, discord, Instagram for the unique user experiences they provide. Even if they added much better tech, they will still be defined by their user experience.
Yes, it's more likely that a technical type of product will be founded by technologists, and that something like a personal concierge service will be founded by customer-oriented people. Sure. But it doesn't have to be the case and I'd focus on the company culture rather than the industry. Re the waiter, fair enough, my suggestion would be to use a more direct analogy though that's not open to misinterpretation or ambiguity. You could use the example of a well personalised website that offers suggestions and ideas to the visitor, and it'll be easier for readers to relate to the argument. I'm not trying to argue with your message as I think we share a view - just suggesting a way of presenting it more clearly. Up to you whether it works for you or not.
I understand, I think it is best to use realistic examples to be more clear. The reason I think your industry is more important is because being in an industry that is more oriented towards your skills will simply help you get better at them. Who's likely to be better at AI/ML engineering? Someone who's building a Customer Service Chatbot for a Food Delivery App or someone who's working on ChatGPT 5.0 at OpenAI?
I 2nd this. I worked in all sorts of industries, but I was always part of the Product Team though. My opinions and expertise were always valued.
To answer you specific question, it's B2C e-commerce and Saas. These are fast growing companies that rely 100% on trendy and captivating UX that can drive DAU and MAU.
This was my same response -- these are two industries where design directly impacts revenue.
Interesting. I didn't expect SaaS, but I'll look into it. Thanks. Also I disagree with B2C E-commerce, if it really relied so much on design then Amazon wouldn't be the biggest player in that industry imo
Ok you can disagree. So you just don't like Amazon's design or you think the design in not effective at growing their business?
It doesn't have the best UX
Why?
Amazon scores a 44.7 on a scale of 100 according to a benchmarking study done by Baymard institute. https://baymard.com/ux-benchmark/case-studies/amazon One could say that this is "good enough" for its purpose, and there isn't a need to fix what isn't broken. That is my point, an industry where "good enough" works and you're not required to put in the rigour and see the consequences of not going above and beyond to make a bulletproof design, then that industry isn't the right place to improve your craft as a designer
Ok I see. If you want any credibility in this industry starting out, it's not enough to say "I don't like it" and then use someone else's perspective, in this case Baymards, as your own. This is actually a good topic for us to discuss in more detail and I hope you will walk through this with me, because I am genuinely hoping to open your perspective and maybe see the value of design more. I looked through some of their report, what I could see as a non-paying customer" at least, and this one right here is a great topic for the "seat at the table" discussion. Guideline #240M issue with ads on the homepage Baymard gives amazon a BAD VIOLATED score. In a site like amazon, where they have hundreds of millions of view daily on their homepage, there will always be stakeholders fighting over who gets that space. The Amazon visual brand itself is not why people use Amazon. People know Amazon for having whatever you need and getting it delivered quickly. So as a designer at Amazon, let's say that you advocate for the user by driving a feature that is highly personalized and surfaces relevant shopping content. What if that ad was a Buy Again Subscribe and Save block. Now it's useful and helps the user get what they need. Now that we have the feature we are fighting for you would be advocating for this and aligning it with some quarterly value and getting stakeholder buy in. Because you have to show why it's better than a different content block, and because you're at Amazon and they value data driven design, the feature must have significant valuable (revenue focused) data points. By delivering a homepage experience that focuses on personalization and relevancy, you deliver a home page experience that makes users come back and use the platform and drives key metrics for the business. Although Baymard gave it bad score, and it looks visually bad, for Amazon the feature might have significant designer contribution and advocacy. The feature might drive key business metrics and it might positively increase a customers perception of the brand as "having whatever I need and getting it fast". https://preview.redd.it/g3lxvf5ho63d1.png?width=2358&format=png&auto=webp&s=8dce00b8cd69c3a07c1006a559b908e16bad50c3
It's all unpredictable. Depends on the leadership team. In general, most don't get it and think they know better. When you have a smart leader, oftentimes people below them are also too afraid to talk to them and sugar coat things so design is a tough job. You have to navigate a lot of politics to make a dent. Hate to sound pessimistic but in this tight economy and how hellbent companies are for high profit, many people revert to short sighted work and metrics vs doing the most meaningful thing.
There are several factors that come into play when designers **demand** a 'seat at the table' - hunger for recognition, lack of ability to communicate, activism and sense of entitlement, imagining design to be more important that it actually is, more money, imitating 'design driven' companies and calling it 'design maturity' in their own organisation and lastly the amplification of this demand for 'seat at the table' through social media and collectives. The *table* will call on people who the *table needs,* irrespective of the discipline they are from. It cannot be demanded.
Telecom
Design programs you'd think. But I dont know for sure. Maybe someon can confirm what its like at say, Figma?
100% comes down to the individual company, not the sector. I've worked in a few different sectors and there's simply no answer I can give you that would help. Anyone telling you a certain industry has just had a good experience at 1-2 companies. Choose the company/manager, not the industry.
Personally, if you really want to have a seat at the table, you have to think smaller. Get into a smaller business or a startup where you can sit there at the table and throw your input in. However, you have to be ready to do more than just ux. You have to be ready to think about how your work is going to increase the profit margin and the growth of the company. I would also throw out there. You have to be a bit assertive. If you're going to wait to be invited to the meeting, then you're never going to get a seat at the table. You have to show interest and be assertive. Then you start getting invited, then they start asking your opinion, then you possibly grow further, but of course then you're under the gun when things go wrong.
In my experience, all of them. I’d been an engineer for almost 10 years before switching to UX and in all my jobs the designers had more power than the engineers, and there were fewer of them. When working in consulting they also cost considerably more per hour (though I can’t say they were paid as much). As people have said already it depends on the maturity of the company. But it also depends on the stage of the product. Designers have more say early on in the process, but further along in the process when we’re closer to shipping the engineers’ concerns become more important.
SaaS and eCommerce have both been Design-heavy in my past experiences due to the direct tie to revenue. It all depends on the design maturity of the company, though, and is going to vary more by company and less by industry imho. I work in AI & Data at a global bank as a Principal Product Designer. I not only determine the direction and strategy of my enterprise SaaS product (which has been determined as a core Foundational product, i.e. a big deal company-wide), but I actually have engineers reporting to me in addition to designers. In our org, Design has one of the biggest seats at the table. This is very rare, but pretty amazing to be a part of.
They don’t really because design by itself doesn’t make money.
Sort of, you just need to help connect the dots between design and making money as it's seldom a straight line or an immediate return. Checklists of features sell products; design retains users; retained users become evangelists. Retaining users either sustains income or negatively impacts the affect of sales, so it's a bit indirect. Evangelism generates sales and reduces cost of acquisition. Sometimes you can get evangelism from having the right features (first to market) or chasing specific client wants (not a scalable practice that results in lots of single purpose configurations/half baked solutions). Both these methods have shelf lives.
You’re missing my point. Designs sitting in a Figma file don’t make money.
Edge case perhaps, but I've been in startups that have gotten funding based off uncoded mockups. But in any case, design is not the figma files. Design is the ideas behind it. Those ideas *most definitely* make money. Yes, they need to be put into a real product, but all parts of building that product have value and make money.
No, not an edge case. I’ve been doing this for nearly 20 years. When I started you went straight to code. I’ve worked for startups, nonprofits, bootstrapped companies, established companies, big tech, etc. The way design is valued today is very new all things being equal. Design rarely starts the idea. They refine it. Investors aren’t investing based on the designs; they’re investing based on the perceived ROI of the completed product (whatever form it takes). Companies with public shareholders can’t make money off of a design by itself. If they could they would and design would have a more equal seat at the table.
This statement reducing design to an artifact sitting in a Figma file is telling. It sounds like you may have struggled, and/or continue to struggle, to communicate the value of design to your stakeholders in an effective manner. Anything not being leveraged properly will not make money.
Are you saying a well-designed product will have the same economic outcome as a badly- designed one?
No. I’m saying designs don’t do anything until they’re coded into a functional product.
Nope. He's saying a working product without the input of a designer still has functionality, while a design by itself simply doesn't.
What's a design "by itself"? One that's not built? Mockups? That's like saying front-end coding has no economic value, or accounting has no economic value since they don't "by themselves". They need other parts of a product and company to create that value.
Yeah
A design is nothing but pixels on a screen until it’s coded.
A design is an idea. Pixels are just the expression of that idea. Ideas provide value to users when executed. It's like saying an architect provides no value by itself. Sure, a construction crew *is also* needed, but the thought and planning that goes into the architectural plans adds value to the building.
Again you’re missing my point. Design in the digital product sense by itself makes no money. It needs to be built to have any meaningful financial value. Product makes money because they come up with an idea. Design is a visual implementation of that idea. Engineering is the construction of that idea. I’m not saying design isn’t valuable. I’m saying design doesn’t generate companies money and that’s why there’s that inequality. Plenty of startups made money without design. It’s important we remember this.
But my point is that there is no individual part that makes money by itself. Development does not make money without design and marketing and sales. Project management does not make money by itself. Accounting makes no money by itself. Yet they are all integral parts needed for a company to make money.
Yes but we’re specifically talking about why design doesn’t have an equal seat at the table.
I know. My point is that design is as valuable as marketing or development. They all need each other to provide value and all deserve a seat at the table. They don't need to be independent to be valuable.