Alex Rainert

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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Ever considered treating a meeting like a product? Not in the “let’s make it fun” kind of way, but intentionally designing it for usability, clarity, and value. In this week’s Product Chats episode, Anuj Jhunjhunwala, Director of Product at Merge, challenges product teams to rethink the everyday artifacts of work (meetings, docs, all-hands) as products themselves. What if your team comms were designed with the same care as your roadmap? What if your weekly schedule was something you iterated on? This episode is a mindset shift.

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UX research is evolving—and the teams that adapt are the ones growing. In this episode, Ryan Glasgow (CEO, Sprig) shares why speed, strategy, and business alignment are now critical for modern UX research teams. 🎧 Listen to the full episode: https://lnkd.in/eU3aVWP3 #UXResearch #StrategicUX #DesignLeadership #FuzzyMath #UXPodcast

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This is what investing in AI in design looks like. As with many other job families, the design industry focuses on what might the impact of AI be: will it lower the quality with slop? Will it replace humans? Etc But I don't see much focus on to understand and really capitalise on the potential AI brings to design. We are largely treating it as any other tool: a way to get incrementally better. At best it's a short course for the designers, at worst it's expecting designers to already know how to use it. But AI has the potential for making radical shifts and leaps. I'd love to hear, and learn, from anyone who is making significant strides to drive AI transformation in design.

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People expect design leaders to be creative directors. The reality? We need deep expertise in organizational transformation, shifting business models without disrupting delivery, and AI implementation, with the list of needs continuing to grow. These aren't occasional challenges. They're daily, simultaneous demands that require empirical and tacit knowledge. The skill set has fundamentally changed, and design education hasn't kept pace. The bootcamp boom? Never helped to improve. The gap between doing design and leading design is massive. Being excellent and efficient at craft doesn't automatically translate to strategic influence. We need frameworks for translating user insights into business decisions that actually stick. The real work happens in the messy middle, where compliance meets innovation, research challenges organizational assumptions, and technical constraints collide with vision. That's where design leadership actually lives, and it's rarely what the majority of Design Leaders we're trained for. After two decades of building design authority in growing orgs, I've learned more from navigating these tensions than from any formal training. But we shouldn't have to figure this out alone. Worth the read if you're thinking about what design leadership really requires today and how you can acquire this type of knowledge. #DesignLeadership #UXStrategy #DesignThinking https://lnkd.in/gss3ueCz

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What separates a digital product that quietly plateaus from one that becomes a growth engine? 🚀 In her recent interview for Authority Magazine, our executive leading digital product design, Jessica Wagner, breaks down five principles that shape how we think about product growth: solving real problems, designing for repeat value, reducing friction, aligning teams around outcomes, and using AI with intention. From modernizing loyalty at Victoria’s Secret to rethinking the mobile experience for Ikon Pass, these principles are informed by our work, and driving real business impact. https://lnkd.in/gmhyeZV6

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There's a real predicament design leaders are facing right now. Virtually every one of them is being asked to come up with a strategy for their team, model new behaviors, and have a plan for AI, but they're just as new to this as everyone else. Worse, most don't have the time or space to play, experiment, or actually dig in. That's an incredibly hard place to lead from. Leaders are expected to have good judgment, make good decisions, and provide good guidance, but you only get good at those things through hands-on experience. Without it, you're just guessing. IME, no one likes being in a position where they have to make a call and cosplay confidence, all while knowing they're just guessing. There's a lot of information out there around coding or designing with AI, but not so much when it comes to strategic work, leading people, and positioning a team to win. That's why I created Claude Cowork for Design Leaders. I ran the first session on Tuesday with no real idea how it would go. I assumed folks would create a skill, and they did. I also assumed the attendees would mostly be Senior ICs. Instead, 15 Directors, Senior Directors, and Heads of Design showed up. For pre-work, I asked attendees to write down the AI agent they wanted to make. When I opened the session, I asked everyone to answer one question about their goal without using AI. "If this agent does what you want it to, what does good look like versus bad? Write down the observable signals or measurable heuristics you will use to tell the difference." And y'all, they struggled. The question seems straightforward, but it's deceptively hard. People with twenty years of experience who talk about strategy, vision, and plans every day struggled to know what makes them good or bad. That was humbling for them, but sometimes that's the best part of learning. In reality, they had the answers. They'd just never been given the time and space to articulate them. We spent the morning learning how to do that. Then in the afternoon, they created, tested, and refined agents that did a pretty good job of doing what they wanted them to. When you facilitate a workshop, you kinda know if it went well or not. But, the only want to know is by hearing from participants. I got this email Wednesday morning: "Ryan, thank you for our session yesterday. I've been feeling paralysed by the pressure to leverage AI for my workflow as a leader, but your session was a total breakthrough. It's unlocked so many ideas and honestly relieved a huge amount of anxiety I was carrying. I am so grateful I've found this!" So, I'm running the workshop again on April 21. Early-bird tickets are on sale through March 27th. I'll see you there. https://lnkd.in/egBkjSyU

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🚫 Before you jump on the AI bandwagon for design systems, consider this: most companies aren’t ready for it. In our latest article, Yelena Kreyndel highlights the critical need to address foundational issues before integrating AI into design systems. 🔑 Key insights include: 🏗️ Many teams are still operating with outdated practices, treating tools like Figma as their sole design system. 📊 AI can amplify existing problems—if your data is poor, the results will be too. 🛠️ Focus on establishing core systems, governance, and cross-platform strategies before introducing AI. Are you prioritizing the basics in your design processes? Let’s discuss how to build a solid foundation for future innovations. 👇 #ProductDesign #DesignSystems #AI #UXDesign #Governance 👇 [Read the full article here](https://lnkd.in/d9RZwA9d) Article by: Yelena K.

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Great UX doesn’t assume perfect users. It supports real behavior, real environments, real limitations. Accessibility isn’t a feature layer. It’s how products become dependable at scale. Build products that work in real life not just in demos. #InclusiveUX #ProductStrategy #AccessibleDesign #UserExperience #AccessifyLabs

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How companies build design teams is changing. Roles are merging, AI is forcing companies to re-think about who they need to hire, how they hire and if indeed they need to make so many hires. I put together some updated thoughts on recent observations in hiring designers. TL;DR of the article: - Different requirements of designers - The bar to get a design role is higher - Interviews are more practical - The rise of super senior IC - The need for hands-on Design Directors - Roles are merging - Be prepared to sell an opportunity to designers

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