Katie Wright

You don’t need to design everything at once. You need to design the right things first. What sounds simple - start small - is actually one of the hardest things to do when building a design system. In our latest ebook, design leaders share their insights - like this one from Joe Cahill, Creative Director at Unqork - on how to keep your design system alive, get buy-in from teams, and make engineers your allies. 👉 Built by Netguru experts, featuring lessons from VISA, Wolt, Delivery Hero, and Allegro. 📘 Grab your copy: https://lnkd.in/dwyY6nNT

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The latest most-clicked articles from the UXDX newsletter dives into AI systems, research impact, and the art of smarter collaboration. Here’s what the community found most insightful this week: 🔹 Syed Balkhi on how structured techniques like affinity mapping and storytelling can turn raw qualitative data into insights that actually drive decisions: https://lnkd.in/eKTGZgXv 🔹 John Cutler on why not all helping helps, and how clarifying roles and collaboration patterns can turn well-intentioned support into real progress: https://lnkd.in/eCCADpBr 🔹 Paul Levchuk on how metric trees can guide strategy, but only if they’re regularly validated against real outcomes and evolving business goals: https://lnkd.in/eCjgjZpc 🔹 Julie Zhuo on designing conversational interfaces that feel natural and human by combining strong UX fundamentals with a deep grasp of dialogue: https://lnkd.in/eG_J483k 🔹 Rahul Suresh and Srini Penchikala on why scalable AI systems depend on modular architecture, clean interfaces, and robust evaluation loops: https://lnkd.in/dFrbXimP Lots here for teams balancing strategy, design, and systems thinking. Want to stay up-to-date on what is going on in the industry? Make sure to subscribe to our newsletter: https://lnkd.in/eDtCUdQ #UXDX #UX #ProductManagement #Leadership #AI #Design #Research

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GV (Google Ventures) have a long history of hiring former designers and design leaders to support their portfolio companies. Folks like Jake Knapp, John Zeratsky, Kate Aronowitz, Daniel Burka, Braden Kowitz, Vanessa Cho, and Tom Hulme. In my latests podcast interview, Kate Aronowitz explains why this is, and what designers bring to the table. Interestingly it's not about craft, but rather the way they see the world with a beginners mind.

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What if you could leverage your UX talent to empower everyone to do better AI prototyping, instead of trying to “replace UX with AI”? A few years ago, while working with athenahealth (before AI prototyping tools were widely available), I saw an approach that I found brilliant and still relevant today. Instead of creating bottlenecks, their UX leader built a design system that product managers could use directly for prototyping. A director-level UX person provided guidance and quality checks, but PMs weren't stuck waiting for design approval at every step. The key was strategic enablement: give your PMs the tools, templates, and frameworks they need, then provide oversight through periodic reviews instead of approval gates. Component libraries, prototyping guidelines, and clear design principles that anyone can follow created the right support so teams could move fast without compromising standards. Don't skip on UX talent when it's critical for your users. But leverage the tools and structure things with strong UX support so you can empower others to do good work that aligns with organizational standards. The best UX teams don't just create great designs, workflows, and prototypes. They create systems that help others create great stuff too. How are you structuring the relationship between Product and UX in your organization?

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The next frontier for enterprises is not digital innovation. It is governance of the digital, AI included. Design is the connective tissue here: mapping the terrain, orchestrating accountability, embedding responsibility. This isn’t design as a support function. This is design as governance, a core enterprise capability. We are crossing a threshold. The question is not whether design will be at the table. It’s whether designers will step into the messy middle, where technology, compliance, and human conscience collide. And finally make a difference.

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🚨 🎧 New podcast episode is live! This one really hit home and felt incredibly timely for where the UX industry is right now. If you’ve been questioning your next move in UX or wondering what’s possible beyond consulting, this conversation is for you. I sat down with Christine Perfetti, a UX leader I recently reconnected with after 20 years, to talk about something that’s been on a lot of our minds lately: 👉 Should I stay in UX, or is it time to pivot? Christine has been asking herself that same question. After years of running her successful consultancy, she started to feel the pull toward something more meaningful and deeply personal. What came out of that reflection is her passion project: Lift Up Connections, a program designed to help women reimagine their careers and lives through intentional reflection, connection, and community. In this episode, we talk about: ✨ The emotional side of career reinvention ✨ What happens when your self-worth is tied to your work ✨ How Lift Up was born and why it’s resonating with so many women ✨ Balancing consulting with new creative pursuits ✨ Why connection (not just visibility) is everything right now If you’re at a crossroads in your career, or just craving work that feels more aligned with your values, you’re going to love this conversation. 👉 🎧 Listen Now: You can find The UX Consultants Lounge on your preferred podcast platform or visit the podcast website to listen to all the episodes (link in comments). Note: You can easily jump around to different parts of the interview using the chapter links in the player. 👉 ❓ And if you’ve also been rethinking your path, I’d love to hear from you in the comments. What’s been on your mind lately? #ux #uxconsulting #careerchange #lifedesign #connection #designingyourlife #userresearch #liftupconnections #consulting #freelancing #uxfreelancing #uxpodcast #userexperience #businessstrategy #WomenInTech #UXResearch #CareerDevelopment

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I had a conversation recently about the balance between data and creativity in design. You probably know the story about Doug Bowman leaving Google because they wanted to test 41 shades of blue for a link color. It's become a cautionary tale in our industry, and for good reason. If you only listen to testing, you end up with something very competent but very uninspiring. Every decision backed by data. Every choice justified by numbers. And somehow, the end result feels... fine. Just fine. I've made this mistake myself more times than I'd like to admit. I've hidden behind "the data says" when I should have trusted creative judgment. It took me embarrassingly long to realize that testing should inform design, not dictate it. Data is brilliant at telling you when something doesn't work. It's rubbish at telling you what would be remarkable. A/B tests can optimize a button, but they can't dream up something users didn't know they wanted. So that's where I've landed after years of overthinking this. Use research to understand the problem. Use creativity to solve it. And maybe don't test 41 shades of blue unless you genuinely want to watch your best designers walk out the door. #UXDesign #UserExperience #DesignLeadership

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We need to stop designing for personas. Why? Because customers aren’t static segments.... they’re living, ever-changing, people. In my latest article for DOCUMENT Strategy Media, I dive into how dynamic, context-aware communications are reshaping CXM, going far beyond personas. From onboarding to billing, from digital twins to adaptive journeys. It's time to personalize with purpose. 🔗 Read the full piece and join the shift from segmentation to individualization: https://lnkd.in/dCDmFaNX #CX #CXM #CCM #DigitalTwins #CustomerExperience #Personalization #AI

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Digital design has lost its way—drifting toward visual trends while neglecting the foundation that gives design meaning: content. Why does messaging and structure matter more than style, and how does the rise of large language models make content more critical than ever to how brands are seen and understood online. https://lnkd.in/gvvHrHpb #llm #webdesign #opinion #digitaldesign

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Most UX researchers are curious by nature. But when it comes to AI, a lot of people are waiting on the sidelines. I get it. New tools can seem overwhelming—or overhyped. But AI is changing how we do research, whether we’re ready or not. I put together a set of free primers for researchers who want to get learn about what's here now, and what's coming: • The Future of UX Research Roles – A Primer for AI-Aware Researchers • AI-Powered Analysis – A Primer for Researchers • Transform Your UX Research: Master Prompt Engineering • Synthetic Users – A Primer for Researchers • AI-Moderated Interviews – An Introductory Primer for Researchers If you’re not learning and experimenting, you might miss out on some real advantages. Try these primers out. Be skeptical. But also be curious. If you want a copy, DM me or check the link below. Curiosity pays off—especially now. P.S. If these are helpful, I’ve got a full course on this stuff: AI for Customer Research: Future-Proof Your UX & Product Skills — John Whalen, PhD

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Can't we just make our personas using AI now? Um. Not yet, no. But they might be helpful as a supplement. Very interesting paper on this: https://lnkd.in/g2TUTCfi Here's some highlights: -"If we were to capture this [AI-created persona] as a persona headshot, we would imagine an overconfident, idealized Superman-like character—muscled and polished, flawless and unbounded—totally unaware of their own limitations." -"GPT fell short of the kinds of contextualized insight our human respondents provided." -"The AI responses our team collected felt unrealistic and didn’t help us learn how to best prioritize the vast amounts of potential data about the users and their habits."

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A couple of weeks ago, I met my good friend Nick Cawthon for burritos in the Mission. We were catching up and talking about life, the Design MBA program, and...the state of design. I asked him what I ask every design leader and agency owner I know... 1) What does AI mean to you and your business? 2) How are you using AI tools/materials with clients? 3) Which AI tools do you think are worth trying? Though most people I've spoken with talk about AI tools as something they use to help them create content or parse through data, Nick had a different answer. Yes, he uses AI to help make sense of HUGE data sets, like the time he surfaced trends from 40 million Airbnb reviews, then applied human intelligence to find the meaning. And...he also uses AI to do EXACTLY what product and engineering teams are doing, which is to use AI-assisted tools, like Cursor, to create real, working (i.e., coded) UX from designs, which he can then hand directly to engineering teams, thereby narrowing the gap between design and production, and...(almost) completely removing the metaphorical wall designers typically throw design specs over. Oh...and by the way, his clients did not ask for this. They asked and expected him to hand over Figma specs, as per usual. He didn't. Instead, he handed them exactly what they needed to move forward. To me, this is EXACTLY what innovators, product people, designers, and design leaders must start doing. And Nick proved that A) it works, and B) his clients love it. This is all about creating and delivering MORE value than the client/customer expects. It's a perfect use case for AI. We spoke about this and TONS more in depth during my Design Shift interview with him. Check it out this Saturday! If you're not already subscribed to the Design Shift newsletter, where you can read all about our discussion (plus a bunch more useful insights), you can do so by clicking the link in the comments. And...if you're not into the newsletter, it's super easy to unsubscribe.

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You've likely seen the headlines of executives issuing AI mandates for internal teams, some of which hasn't landed well internally (or externally). Prior to these headlines making a splash we opted to take a slightly different approach. A set of expectations for the entire Design org: 1. You’ll experiment with AI and share what you’re learning. 2. You’ll become proficient at prompting. 3. You’ll stay alert to opportunities for which AI can improve the products, services, and workflows you’re responsible for. 4. You’ll maintain a very high bar for design quality, regardless of whether humans or bots do the work. 5. You’ll never lose touch with the ability to craft with your hands, mind, heart, and gut. How are we making these actionable so they're not just frothy maxims? One of the ways we're doing this is through a monthly series called "AI Playdates" where volunteers or delegates present on design-related AI topics to the entire org. Today was the second instance in our series, with four presenters sharing their experimentation with Lovable, Bolt, Replit, v0, and ChatGPT for generating UI concepts and complementing their design workflows. Through Playdates, we're directly chipping away at 1 and 2 above, and indirectly at 4 and 5. Expectations (or guiding principles) such as these aren't likely to make headlines. In fact this post isn't likely to garner much attention either. Yes, sometimes we need to act boldly as leaders, and yes even with mandates. But there is also wisdom, sometimes greater wisdom, in acting with more thoughtful judgment and more flexible guidelines. Slow and steady. Measured and principled. These don't make headlines as much, but gosh they sure can be an effective way to lead. #ai #design #leadership

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Let’s talk about what’s actually happening in UX research. Our team at User Interviews just released the 2025 State of User Research report, and the results are eye-opening. Here’s what I’m seeing: User Researchers aren’t disappearing. They’re adapting. They’re building new skills, trying new methods, experimenting with AI, and doing more with less. Sure, there’s pressure. Layoffs. Budget cuts. Tool fatigue. But the data shows something else too—resilience, creativity, and a whole lot of people doubling down on the value of insight. This report cuts through the noise and gives a clear picture of where the field really stands. And where it’s headed. 📊 Read the full report - https://vist.ly/46awh

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