Kevin W.

Most designers say they want impact. What they really want is proof. At scale, I had to formalize proof. I once built a quarterly UX strategy using Jared Spool's Persuasive Metrics to connect design decisions to revenue. A 2% reduction in onboarding friction translated into six figures in retained revenue. That was the language the room spoke. Dashboards. Quarterly reviews. Attribution models. Impact had to be quantified before it was believed. Now I’m at a tiny startup. Last week, a customer Slacked: “Magemetrics saves me days on campaign reports.” Following the rebrand, a prospect opened the site and said: “Okay. This feels serious.” These calls felt different: less explaining, fewer objections, more trust. No attribution model. No presentation. Just behavior changing in real time. Here’s what’s different: In enterprise, proof arrives as numbers. In startups, proof shows up as decisions. Enterprise feedback arrives filtered and quarterly; startup impact is immediate. Doubt slows deals. Confidence speeds them up. Immediacy forces clarity. You take fewer performative bets. You stop optimizing for presentations. You design to remove doubt. Because you’re not defending slides — you’re shaping what happens next.

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A lot of conversations I have with design teams start the same way: “We’re moving fast… but we keep circling back.” It’s rarely a skill issue. It’s a timing issue. Most misalignment doesn’t come from bad design. It comes from discovering truth too late—after engineering starts, after a sprint closes, or after launch. And the cost of that delay is enormous. A late fix can be 100× more expensive than catching the issue early. But the teams that validate upfront—concepts, prototypes, even simple assumptions—consistently move faster, not slower. I’ve seen: • 25% fewer iteration cycles • Clearer rationale behind decisions • Less friction between design, product, and engineering Early insight isn’t a tax on velocity. It’s the engine of velocity. When we test earlier, we spend less time reworking and more time progressing. And our teams feel it—not just in timelines, but in confidence and morale. These themes are showing up across the teams featured in our newest Leadership Signal. It’s a great pulse check on how leaders are tightening alignment earlier in the process. https://bit.ly/4ixuGp2

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The classic design process is evolving and fast. For African tech innovators, this is a wake-up call: the way we build products, design interfaces, and solve problems is changing globally. Leveraging AI, thinking beyond traditional processes, and embracing new design archetypes could be the key to creating world-class products from Africa. 🌍✨ Tech is no longer about following established playbooks, it’s about adapting, experimenting, and innovating faster than ever. #AfricanTech #Innovation #Design #AI #ProductBuilding #FutureOfWork

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It seems there has been a gradual shift away from process-heavy case studies in design portfolios toward simpler overviews—or even just polished final deliverables. It’s understandable that some people prefer one approach over the other. To navigate this change, I’ve been experimenting with a toggle in my case studies that lets viewers switch between a visual presentation and a process-focused one. Why limit yourself to a single format when you can offer both?

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I’ve been reflecting on a recent conversation about design as control versus design as collaboration. Dr. Liz Gerber puts it this way, "AI...has been promised to do whatever we want. The one thing it can’t do is tell us what we want." Jai Shekhawat asked, "What might a future interface look like?" I’d challenge us to even expand that question to include what future societies might look like when we prioritize collaboration over control, inclusion over speed, sustainability over scale. Whether design, technology, media, or civic spaces, the common thread is the same: we cannot outsource human values to systems. I believe our work is to invite possibility, to imagine what humans want before tech imposes what’s possible. “To create anything new and novel, you have to be prepared to do something different to get after it," Kevin Bethune notes. As design finds its role alongside AI, we can feel confident that our choices shape systems, not the other way around. What choices then are we making today, in design, in media, in our communities, to ensure human dignity leads the way? Thank you to Lee Moreau for convening the conversation.

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This is super interesting and especially relevant right now. AI is reshaping product design, development, and engineering at an unprecedented pace. Many of the assumptions and practices we relied on are being disrupted, and we need to adapt quickly.

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This hit close to home. This quarter we've been actively rethinking our design process. Removing rituals, pulling back on some discovery activities, and prioritizing speed and learning over craft and critique. It can be uncomfortable but it's the right direction. This episode puts a lot of it into words.

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A lot of this reflects my own personal view of how the design process is changing, and its effects on the archetypes of designers needed for the next chapter

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Design leaders — I’m curious how you think about titles. When I first joined Buildertrend, design operated more like a studio model: brought in late, asked to execute, and largely separated from product decision-making. We called it product design, but in practice it skewed heavily toward UX/UI support. Over time, I’ve landed on a simple articulation that’s helped reset expectations across product, engineering, and leadership: • UI designers care about what it looks like • UX designers care about how it works • Product designers care about solving customer problems It’s a yes-and, not a mutually exclusive choice — but the distinction has mattered. For us, “product design” signals that designers are embedded in teams, close to customers, involved early, and accountable for outcomes — not just outputs. It’s also shifted how candidates perceive us: as a product-led SaaS company where design has real influence. I’m curious how other design leaders approach this. Do titles meaningfully shape behavior in your org? Have you stayed with UX, shifted to product design, or something else entirely — and why? Would love to learn how others are navigating this.

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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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Product design: Heaven & hell. In keeping with Halloween, I’ve written a short piece exploring what makes product design succeed, and where it so often goes wrong. Spoiler alert: the difference between design heaven and design hell isn’t taste or talent; it’s discipline, clarity, and collaboration. Great design connects brand, experience, and technology. It’s built on empathy, evidence, and iteration; not assumption or aesthetics alone. At atomic, we treat every project as a test of how well design can balance creativity with commercial impact. This article shines a light on some of those learnings. https://lnkd.in/envKzK96 #productdesign #designleadership #heavenhell #technology #ux #ui #digitaldesign #atomic

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I find a lot of satisfaction in using vibe coding tools to turn what used to just be fun ideas into real outputs people can use. A couple weekends ago before our whole family was taken down with the flu for 8 straight days, Annie Clark and I took a conversation from our Thursday date night about how to reduce the murkiness around discussing design roles and responsibilities in the modern day and created Is Like, a framework for understanding what kind of designer you should look for based on your specific needs. Have a short conversation with our evaluator and Is Like will output a full readout of skills to look for, how they should be distributed, and what kind of title you should be looking for. We went from concept to publishing in about 72 hours before influenza-a prevented us from sharing, but we’re healed and would love to hear feedback.

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