Video: Shadow Design–Where Else is Design Happening in Your Organization? (Videoconference)

100s of community videos are available to free members. Conference talks are generally available to Gold members.

Shadow Design–Where Else is Design Happening in Your Organization? (Videoconference)

Thursday, April 20, 2023 • Enterprise Community

Audrey Crane

Summary

Companies are spending millions of dollars on shadow design teams (aka non-designers doing design work). This session shares the concept and the tools we’ve used to measure how much shadow design is happening in a client’s organization. Plus, a case study with some surprising results, and how a design leader used it to grow her team after months of banging her head against a wall. An interesting and perhaps more productive way to approach the “ROI of Design” conversation.

Key Insights

•

Many organizations unknowingly spend significant time and money on 'shadow design'—design work done by non-designers due to understaffed teams.
•

The ROI conversation around design investment is widely seen as ineffective and exhausting among UX professionals like Audrey, Leah Buley, and Erica Jorgenson.
•

Shadow design often occurs because people don’t know how to access or work effectively with internal design teams, not just due to lack of resources.
•

Investing in trained designers increases engineering velocity by freeing engineers from doing design tasks.
•

Organizational culture and design maturity significantly affect how design is integrated and valued within enterprises.
•

There is a common misconception around a 'unicorn designer' who can do everything, but realistic role expectations are critical.
•

Both centralized and distributed UX team models struggle similarly with shadow design when designers are stretched too thin.
•

Democratization of design and research involves grappling with issues of control over processes and decision-making.
•

Measuring and making visible the amount of shadow design work helps in making stronger, more effective cases for proper design resourcing.
•

Building resilience and adaptability, akin to 'building an ark,' is more practical than trying to predict economic downturns when planning design investment.

Notable Quotes

"Predicting rain doesn’t count. Building an arc does."

"I’m pretty tired of talking about the ROI of design. We’ve been talking about it for a long time and it’s not super effective."

"The alternative to good design isn’t no design, it’s bad design."

"People don’t know how to get design resources or work with the design team — and that’s a big problem."

"Shadow design happens because design is understaffed or people think it’s okay to do design even if they aren’t trained."

"We’re spending money on design today but often spending it poorly."

"If your engineers are stretched doing design, why not move some of that headcount to design to increase velocity?"

"There’s no such thing as no design—design is always happening whether or not a trained designer is involved."

"Designers assigned to too many teams (like 12 teams) simply can’t provide effective support, causing shadow design work."

"Instead of asking for more investment, start with how you’re spending design dollars now and ask, would you like to spend the same money on experienced designers?"

Summary

Key Insights

Notable Quotes

Or choose a question:

More Videos

Designing a Contact Tracing App for Universal Access

Carving a Path for Early Career DesignOps Practitioners

Lessons From the DesignOps Journey of the World's Largest Travel Site

Double Your Mileage: Use Your Research Strategically

Mobile Accessibility: Why Moving Accessibility Beyond the Desktop is Critical in a Mobile-first World

Building a Rapid Research Program (Videoconference)

Widening the Aperture: The Case for Taking a Broader Lens to the Dialogue between Products and Culture

The Design Management Office

But Do Your Insights Scale?

Dig deeper with the Rosenbot