Jesse Kriss

🔊 Design Leadership at Scale has a lot happening in August and beyond. Read on for all the info on Design Leadership at Scale: Operations, plus: ⚡️ Three FREE DLS Lightning Lesson + Team sessions ⚡️ Newly added course dates ⚡️ 20% discount code Design Leadership at Scale: Operations I'm busy putting the final touches on the August course modules, lessons, and projects, but you can expect to dive deep on the following: Module 1: Build and activate high-impact teams Module 2: Define and optimize your operating system Module 3: Identify and address common challenges I'm including many real-world scenarios, and will try to answer pretty much every question you might have during our seven live sessions together. We'll also be joined by special guests with extensive industry experience. If you are still deciding about enrolling in Design Leadership at Scale: Operations, consider joining one of the upcoming free Lightning Lessons or watch my recent Designing your Design Team 30-minute Lightning Lesson to get a better sense for how I teach. And if the August dates don't work with your schedule, I've opened up another cohort October 1-10, 2024. If you have any questions about whether this course will be a good fit for you, let me know, and together we can figure out. Free Lightning Lessons on Maven In August there are three Lightning Lessons from Design Leadership at Scale. All are free to attend. Join live or view the recordings after the session dates. ⚡️ Org Design For Your Design Org – Aug 7, 8-9am PT, with me ⚡️ Team Tactics For Increasing Influence + Impact – Aug 8, 1-1:30pm PT, with Doug Powell ⚡️ How Top Design Leaders Influence At Scale – Aug 16, 2-2:45pm PT, hosted by Rachel Kobetz with Doug Powell, Bob Baxley, and me Grab your spot then spread the word! (links to register in comments) Quick reference: https://bit.ly/4c3UgNA to sign up for the August 19-28 cohort with a 20% discount code https://bit.ly/4cZcf9d to sign up for the October 1-10 cohort with a 20% discount code If your company offers an L&D or education budget, here's a reimbursement template you can leverage https://bit.ly/4fmDhcs

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The Non-Designer's Design Toolkit 👨‍💻 (or “just my observations”) I'm sure many of you have faced (and continue to face) the challenge of differing 🤦‍♂️ design visions between marketers and designers. 🚨 Spoiler alert: this is perfectly normal and will likely never change entirely. As the digital space continues to evolve, the visual component becomes increasingly 🚀 essential, playing a significant role and growing impact on network users. This makes it crucial for marketers to possess some design sensibilities and vice versa for designers to understand marketing goals. After all, the key task for both, in the context of business objectives, is to achieve the desired outcome from potential users 😎. But what if you're a marketer without a dedicated designer on your team❓ By understanding the task at hand and your target audience and equipping yourself with the right tools, you can effectively solve this problem. ⬇ Here's my go-to toolbox as a marketer for creating impactful "non-designer designs": ❇ Creative Idea Don't underestimate the importance of a clear concept! Great design starts with a well-defined idea, like legendary songs written on budget guitars. ❇ Canva This user-friendly platform offers a wealth of templates and features for crafting banners, social media posts, presentations, and more – all in a snap. ❇ Behance Get inspired by browsing stunning design projects from top creators. ❇ Unsplash & Pexels High-quality stock photos and images at your fingertips, perfect for adding visual punch to your designs. ❇ Flaticon Your one-stop shop for discovering and customizing icons to elevate your visuals. ❇ Figma The industry standard for design, Figma offers powerful yet intuitive tools (though some design knowledge might be helpful here). ❇ Color Hunt Feeling color-challenged? Color Hunt provides beautiful color palettes and combinations to take the guesswork out of design. There you have it 🔥 With these tools and a little creativity, you can conquer the "non-designer design" world 🙃. So, what are your favorite tools for creating impactful visuals without design knowledge? Share them in the comments below (if u want 😈 ) #design #marketing #toolkit #tools

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UX leaders: Better understand what motivates designers and how you can help them thrive by taking 3 minutes to read this excerpt from Scott Berkun’s new book “Why Design Is Hard”: https://lnkd.in/ev6XyMss

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The best designers are systems thinkers in disguise. Systems thinking is crucial for iterative, efficient design improvements. Rather than attempt to design a wholly new, perfect solution, oftentimes it’s better to find leverage points—areas where an incremental, often non-intuitive change will lead to significant renovation in the system. The smallest nudge for the biggest effect. A systems thinker knows surface issues are symptoms of deep systemic structures and patterns. They draw up a holistic view of the entire system and identify leverage points that, if altered, create a more efficient, cohesive design. Point being: you don't need to make sweeping changes every time. One of the most pernicious challenges facing our nation is the need for more affordable housing. And when you factor in the manifold constituents, regulations, and interests, this could be one of the most complex systems to navigate. Which is why I was so encouraged to read about Minneapolis’s recent approval of major zoning reforms to promote housing. The director of City Planning there said, "No single legislative action did more to contribute to housing creation than the elimination of parking minimums." This seemingly small change—removing a vestigial mandate for parking that was not even likely to be used—had an outsized impact on the entire housing ecosystem. By relaxing this one constraint, the city unlocked a cascade of possibilities for new developments, more affordable housing, and vibrant neighborhoods. Sometimes, details distract. But when you widen your aperture and begin to understand how the various parts of a system interact, a small adjustment can lead to a massive unlock. Try to see the whole world at once and make sense of it. Widening your aperture can sharpen your focus. Embrace *Systems Thinking*

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My pal Vitaly Friedman is second-to-none when it comes to delivering thorough, thoughtful, and actionable design advice. He's released a few courses that are really valuable for practicing designers and design leads: 🧠 Smart Interface Design Patterns: https://lnkd.in/e-v-jsCG 📏 How to Measure UX Impact: https://measure-ux.com/ #design #ux

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Great writeup on the value design can bring to product organisations irrespective of technoöogical shifts such as AI.

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Here’s a thought: when did we become so obsessed with experience over potential? 🤔 I’ve seen countless job listings asking for 5+ years of experience, a stacked portfolio, and a million different skills, but here’s the thing—skills can be taught, but you can’t teach passion, curiosity, or that relentless drive to learn. Instead of fixating on who checks every single box, why not focus on those who bring enthusiasm, a willingness to grow, and the core skills that can be shaped into something amazing? We don’t need more job descriptions with endless requirements. We need opportunities that recognize talent, passion, and the potential to become great. Let’s start building teams that nurture growth rather than just checking off boxes. 💡 #DesignHiring #PotentialOverExperience #BuildTalent https://lnkd.in/gWB26UX4

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Had to share this thoughtful article about the conflicting feelings we have as designers with new AI tools.... made me consider the threat of too much standardization over innovation, or letting your own creative instincts atrophy. Check it out and lmk your thoughts

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Do you want consistency between designers and front-end developers? Use of design tokens. When everyone uses the same terms, it simplifies things for both teams. Here's Google's introduction to design tokens and how you can implement them: https://lnkd.in/gpWMwqVz

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Loose thoughts is back! This week I wrote about "staging component libraries" and how they can enable fast iteration of designs, prevent bottlenecks in design systems, and encourage experimentation https://lnkd.in/eS3KPKmQ

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Odd #product of day. An unusual dial type touch screen number lock pad. Could you guess how to enter pin code say 1234? For one, this is totally inaccessible for non-sighted people. It does support learning by discovery, so others can probably figure it out - eventually. The meaning of X remains a mystery to me. #designofeverydaythings #usability #UI #interface

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Determine high-priority features in less than an hour. Get everyone in a room. Pass out stickies. Document every task users perform on your app. One task per sticky. Write furiously for 15 minutes. Group similar stickies into feature sets. (Below you’ll see a photo of a workshop I led where we condensed ~70 tasks to 17 features.) Vote for the 3 features you believe are most important to the user. Initial beside your desired feature to cast a vote. The two features with the highest vote count are your high-priority features. Congratulations. 1. Document 2. Group 3. Vote sinpl rlly 🥂

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"For increased readability, we’ve rewritten sections of our privacy statement with simpler, more consistent language." Is there a better summary of the benefit of UX Writing for privacy related work? Well done, Amber and Heather.

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RTFP: Rewrite the f_____ prompt. I’m borrowing the (crude) tone from the original acronym, RTFM, just to remind myself of the state of the tech after seeing a glowing post about using Claude computer control for a brief experiment…and an agonized commenter responding about using it for a genuine problem and failing after a significant amount of time trying to get the prompts “just right” to solve the rest of it (and the new issues it created). If RTFP is the advice you get when you’re having trouble getting what you want out of an AI interface…it’s not you. It’s a reflection of how unstructured and experimental it is now. It’s not the magic box that can solve your problems as easily as it appears to solve a (non-critical) demo. It’s worth tinkering with it if you don’t get what you need immediately, if only to clarify your own thinking about what you need…but keep it focused, timebox it, and be prepared to fall back to what works for solving your problems.

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For anyone looking to get unstuck or tap into someone who can help reveal what's next check out Amy Bonsall!

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Many consumers tend to look at a design system through the lens of what’s missing or constrained and miss a critical part of the core mission: start small and grow the collection based on the needs of the community you serve. Constraints are a natural part of the biological makeup of any system. Much like scope, defining what you can and cannot do creates healthy boundaries that establish the foundation for growth and opportunity. With a design system, constraints open the door for discussions about how we introduce meaningful change over time. That said, when you’re up against a deadline and you encounter an intentional limitation I can understand how it feels like a blocker. But what if you considered that it’s also an opportunity to start a dialog that identifies new requirements, unlocking untapped potential that translates into community value in the process? What if I also said that you have the power to change the system through focused contributions that rethink and reshape the smallest pieces and parts to make it a more effective or efficient solution? As a consumer you need the system to be flexible and I need it to be consistent. I have a responsibility to govern while you need to be able to experiment. This is the nexus where the balance between governance and empowerment becomes more than just managing a component collection. It’s creating a process for shared ownership that requires compromise, rooted in equal parts input and output to guide growth and evolution. Imagine what we can achieve if we work together to create a culture of possibility that focuses on what we do have and how to make it better. Sometimes all it takes is a small, curated foundation, a positive feedback loop, and an engaged community all working together towards the same goal. #ExperienceDesign #UX #ProductDesign #DesignSystems

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Many designers still confuse a component library for a design system, but understanding the difference is critical for creating scalable, cohesive products. In this gabble of words I've explored how major companies like Airbnb and IBM do it right? 🧐 #UXDesign #DesignSystems #ComponentLibrary #ProductDesign #DesignVsDevelopment #Collaboration #Figma #DigitalProductDesign #TechDebate #DesignThinking https://lnkd.in/gGmxyKED

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This and some of the supporting material are a very interesting read. https://lnkd.in/gdesT6-W In addition to all of the discussion about UI design failures, I also wonder how the business model of government contracting contributes to this scenario. When everything is low-bid and the specs don't require disaster scenario testing, complex situations like this can easily get overlooked. Second, even if the vendor learns better design approaches in the future, there is no way for them to come back and update this system leaving the ships crew in between a rock and a hard place. I've seen this play out in plants many times. An operator of 30 years drives the control system with all of their institutional knowledge behind them, new folks can't get up to speed quickly, and the company can't afford any downtime to modernize the system fully, so a vendor who has been providing their mediocre services for the same 30 years gets to keep limping along with everyone else.

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