Rosenverse

This video is only accessible to Gold members. Log in or register for a free Gold Trial Account to watch.

Log in Register

Most conference talks are accessible to Gold members, while community videos are generally available to all logged-in members.

The Values of Design
Gold
Wednesday, November 29, 2023 • Design in Product 2023
Share the love for this talk
The Values of Design
Speakers: Ellen Chisa
Link:

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 collaboration tensions between designers and product managers.

  • Explicitly listing and reflecting on what you value, tolerate, or dislike can reveal personal blind spots and tolerance limits.

  • Aligning on the definition of who the user is critical, especially in large organizations with different teams prioritizing distinct user segments.

  • Qualitative design work gains more traction when paired with quantitative impact metrics like conversion increases.

  • Users and customers are often different groups; product decisions must consider both empathetically.

  • Giving first to teammates and understanding their values is key to gaining support and achieving promotions.

  • Recognizing and respecting others’ go-to techniques and methods in product teams fosters better collaboration and context.

  • Sales teams may oversell due to commission-based compensation; strong communication channels reduce overpromising.

  • Understanding high-level financial concepts like revenue multiples and board dynamics helps demystify growth pressures on companies.

  • Knowing which battles to fight depends on importance and urgency; early-stage issues deserve more attention than last-minute changes.

Notable Quotes

"I wrote a blog post called Can We Talk about the PM Designer Tension almost ten years ago when it was something we weren’t allowed to openly discuss."

"You should figure out what you tolerate that other people don’t, because that defines some of your unique motivations."

"In a big organization, everyone might think they’re talking about the same user, but they really are thinking about completely different groups."

"The most important impact was that this qualitative walkthrough increased conversion to starting a project by 50%—numbers sell better than words."

"There’s always someone else thinking about the customer or buyer, which is often a different person from the user we focus on."

"Give first to your teammates; understand what they value and support them to gain their support in return."

"Sometimes different disciplines bring rigid processes and insist on them, which can cause blind spots in problem solving."

"It’s crucial to build strong relationships across functions, like product folks getting to know data and customer support teams."

"Salespeople might sell features we haven’t built yet because their compensation depends on existing sales."

"When you feel like you’re stuck in a ‘to me’ attitude or feeling persecuted, that’s often the drama triangle at work—take a step back."

Ask the Rosenbot
Greg Petroff
Design is the Differentiator: Bringing New Design Innovations to a Very Antiquated and Very Large Industry
2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold
Dave Malouf
Panel: Design Systems and Documentation
2017 • DesignOps Summit 2017
Gold
Ellen Chisa
The Values of Design
2023 • Design in Product 2023
Gold
Todd Healy
Driving Change with CX Metrics
2023 • Enterprise UX 2023
Gold
Sha Hwang
The Lost Year
2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold
Craig Brookes
"Just Make it Look Good" and Other Ways We're Misunderstood
2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold
Jeff Gothelf
Innovation Studios: the Engines of Enterprise Experimentation
2015 • Enterprise UX 2015
Gold
Sarah Alvarado
How to make UX research leadership more effective [Advancing Research Community Workshop Series] (Videoconference)
2023 • Advancing Research Community
Emily DiLeo
Stronger Together: Lessons Learned from UX Research Ops
2024 • DesignOps 2024
Gold
Yolanda Rankin
Black Feminist Epistemology as a Critical Framework for Equitable Design
2021 • Advancing Research 2021
Gold
Caroline Vize
The State of UX: Five Lessons from 2021 to Accelerate Digital Experience in 2022
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold
Hana Nagel
Turning Research Ripples into Waves
2018 • DesignOps Summit 2018
Gold
Ops without Designers
2018 • DesignOps Summit 2018
Gold
Theresa Neil
Just Build Me a Dashboard! (Videoconference)
2019 • Enterprise Community
Lona Moore
Scaling Design Beyond Designers
2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold
Kelly Goto
Emotion Economy: Ethnography as Corporate Strategy
2015 • Enterprise UX 2015
Gold

More Videos

Jack Moffett

"We embed UX selectively in a few value streams and try to train others to balance research and design activities on their own."

Jack Moffett

SAFe or Sorry? (Videoconference)

May 29, 2019

Tricia Wang

"Post-mortems focused on missed opportunities help make processes more systematic and ensure next time we do better."

Tricia Wang

SCALE: Discussion

June 15, 2018

Fredrik Matheson

"Users aren’t interested in learning intricacies of systems they use infrequently – they want fit for task."

Fredrik Matheson

First-time users, longtime strategies: Why Parkinson’s Law is making you less effective at work – and how to design a fix.

June 8, 2016

Laine Riley Prokay

"We had to ensure that many voices contributed because I could not be the only one making org-wide changes."

Laine Riley Prokay

How DesignOps can Drive Inclusive Career Ladders for All

September 30, 2021

Shipra Kayan

"At first, VOC was just me synthesizing, but as the company grew, we needed tools like UserVoice and then Idiomatic."

Shipra Kayan

How we Built a VoC (Voice of the Customer) Practice at Upwork from the Ground Up

September 30, 2021

Kristen Guth, Ph.D.

"Expert intuition can be wrong or right, especially under uncertain contexts without regular practice and feedback."

Kristen Guth, Ph.D.

Out of the FOG: A Non-traditional Research Approach to Alignment

March 28, 2023

Joi Freeman

"Before Rihanna launched Fenty Beauty with 40 shades, you could only find 16 to 20 in any major cosmetic line."

Joi Freeman

A New Vantage Point: Building a Pipeline for Multifaceted Research(ers)

March 30, 2020

Victor Udoewa

"Listening in real-time to user feedback lets you pivot before it’s too late."

Victor Udoewa

Theme One Intro

March 27, 2023

Peter Merholz

"You need the courage to say no: I’m not going to spread my team so thin that we cannot deliver quality."

Peter Merholz

Customer-Centered Design Organizations

June 8, 2017