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Summary
Against increasing automation and instrumentation, community curator Uday Gajendar argues we will see the rise of what he calls meta-design, whose aspects are strategic, humanistic, and — dare we say — philosophic. It’s about designing the conditions for good design to thrive, for the long term, with a sense for continuity of value. So, how does someone operationalize behaviors and spiritualize values into an organization’s ethos? This talk offers complementary models to shape and own dialogues around meta-design with cross-functional peers, based upon Uday's own leadership experiences. The first model is grounded on what Uday calls “vectors of influence” while the second model is focused on "scopes of craft." This talk’s goal is to inspire and equip designers to lead what’s next for our profession, or at least the beginnings of it!
Key Insights
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Meta design involves designing the conditions for good design to emerge, not just the end products or interfaces.
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There are three kinds of craft in meta design: tradecraft (artifact creation), stagecraft (facilitating stakeholder alignment), and statecraft (diplomatic negotiating and relationship management).
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Soft power and influence are essential skills for designers, encompassing vision, strategy, process, and culture.
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Agile methodologies often fragment the user experience due to excessive chunking, undermining holistic design.
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The commoditization and mechanization of UX risk suppressing the poetic, humanistic aspects of design.
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Meta design requires strategic foresight to anticipate long-term impacts beyond immediate product cycles and metrics.
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Creative provocation helps disrupt assumptions and sparks new dialogue on design directions.
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Reflection in action demands mindfulness about who is excluded from design processes and potential unintended consequences.
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Intellectual humanism grounds design work in fundamental human values like trust, dignity, and respect, aiming to enrich the human condition.
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The blurred boundaries between UX design and product management highlight overlapping roles requiring shared influence and leadership.
Notable Quotes
"Enterprises are places where one hand doesn’t know what the other hand is doing, ignores it, or does what it can to make its life miserable."
"Are we feeling trapped in this thing called UX design? Are we adequately empowered to strive for ideal experiences that enrich the human condition?"
"Agile as trauma — it’s an eye-opening way to consider what agile really does to UX."
"Going meta means designing that needs to happen before the design itself — setting up conditions for good design to emerge and thrive."
"Craft is more than making artifacts; it includes stagecraft and statecraft to align stakeholders and navigate complex social dynamics."
"Influence is about leveraging vision, strategy, process, and culture to be a force multiplier for design impact."
"You can’t do this work with a Jira ticket."
"Design is what’s left after you coordinate interaction design, IA, visual design — the coordinating function."
"If design reported to engineering, designers might influence what gets shipped; if to product, more on strategy and roadmaps."
"What if we activated human virtues like trust, care, hope, respect, and dignity in the work we do and in our products?"
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