“I believe design leadership is shining a light on what could be complex, gnarly challenges. It comes down to three things for me. I think it’s about creating a safe and trusted space, aligning multiple people and not losing sight that we are in service to people.” – Vincent Matyi

In this episode, Rebecca Kalogeris talks to Vincent Matyi, the global head of design for Onyx at JPMorgan Chase. Vincent shares his unique perspective on design leadership.

During this episode, they discuss:

• Vincent’s philosophy on design leadership and its three core principles
• Strategies for leading design teams with trust and alignment
• How to approach complex challenges and create impact through design
• The importance of staying in service to people and harmonizing different stakeholders

Enhance Your Design Strategy with Pragmatic Institute
Want to align your design work with business outcomes and demonstrate its value? Enroll in Pragmatic Institute’s Business Strategy & Design course.

Gain grounding in business strategy, learn the tools and vocabulary of key business stakeholders, and actively apply knowledge to contribute to strategic conversations. Discover how to demonstrate design’s return on investment and advance key business objectives.
Learn More

The post Design Leadership and Impact: A Conversation with Vincent Matyi appeared first on Pragmatic Institute - Resources.

“Technical skills are great up to a certain point in your career. However, When you’re trying to do that jump from senior to lead or senior to manager, that is when you really need to be thinking about these power skills.” – Rochelle Williams, lead product designer at Elsewhen.

In this episode, Rebecca Kalogeris and Rochelle explore a variety of power skills, how to build them and demonstrate them daily. During this conversation, Rochelle not only provides an overview of her winding design career but also gives practical advice to both novice and experienced designers on how to grow their strategic impact and advance their careers.

During this episode, they discuss:

• Why Rochelle urges people to use “power skills” instead of “soft skills” because they “aren’t a nice to have, they are a must-have.”
• How to enable decision-making (aka facilitation)
• Strategies to get more from design workshops
• How to navigate conflict management and self-management
• Ways to start building your power skills today

Learn How to Incorporate Business Strategy into Your Design Role
Discover how to align your design work with business outcomes and demonstrate its value to business objectives in Pragmatic’s Business Strategy & Design course, where you’ll develop skills to participate in strategic conversations, improve cross-functional partnerships and show return on investment.
Learn More

The post Power Skills For Designers with Rochelle Williams appeared first on Pragmatic Institute - Resources.

“Good leadership really comes down to one thing. Do people want to follow you? And you can’t force people to follow you. So if no one’s following, you’re not a leader.” – Eddie Ishak

In this episode of Design Chats, hosted by Rebecca Kalogeris, we delve into the world of design and its strategic impact.

Our special guest is Eddie Ishak, Managing Director of UX and Product Design at JP Morgan, sheds light on the essence of leadership in design and how it doesn’t necessarily correlate with one’s position in an organization.

Whether you are a seasoned designer or just starting, this episode is packed with insights and stories that will inspire you to think about design more strategically and consider the role of leadership in your career.

Eddie discusses:

• What makes a good leader
• Why it’s so important to connect design to the business goals and how to do it
• How design maturity will impact your effectiveness

Unlock Your Design Potential!
Elevate the impact of your designs by enrolling in Pragmatic Institute’s design courses. Our interactive and actionable courses will empower you to contribute strategically to your organization. Take advantage of this opportunity to transform your design skills.
Explore Pragmatic Institute’s Design Courses

The post Elevating the Impact of Design with Eddie Ishak appeared first on Pragmatic Institute - Resources.

Cindy Brummer is the CEO and Creative Director of Standard Beagle Studio, an award-winning UX agency for digital B2B products that she built from the ground up. With a career beginning in TV news, she moved into UX design as the field was burgeoning and went on to teach a UX/UI bootcamp at the University of Texas at Austin.

In a conversation with host Rebecca Kalogeris, Cindy talks about her winding career path, navigating interpersonal dynamics in a consulting environment, and the nuances of UX design in B2B projects – when the end user trying to complete a task might be a developer using a platform to set up an integration or a nurse completing a clinical trial.

The two also discuss:

• Why teaching UX is like chicken sexing
• How Cindy builds alignment and trust with stakeholders, and brings them into decision-making, to ensure a project is successful
• Her guidance for new grads entering UX design, from reading widely to being comfortable with ambiguity
• Why she believes most personas are “total crap” and how she takes a behavior-first approach to creating personas
• The implications of AI on UX roles
• …and more

Are you a designer eager to level up your strategic impact? Pragmatic Institute’s Business Strategy & Design course is tailored to empower designers with the tools and knowledge to align their user-centered work with key business objectives.
Learn More

Unlock the power of storytelling in design. Engage teams, create alignment, and craft compelling narratives with Pragmatic Institute’s Influence Through Storytelling course.
Learn More

The post Cindy Brummer on B2B UX Design, the Problem with Personas, and More appeared first on Pragmatic Institute - Resources.

Effectively conveying the return on investment of good design is crucial; it helps align design decisions with business objectives, secures necessary resources and fosters a culture of collaboration and mutual understanding.

This article provides designers with a robust strategy to effectively communicate the role and importance of design in driving revenue. It serves as a guide to ensure that the critical value of design is appreciated and capitalized on, creating an environment where design is integrated into business strategy.

Start with Understanding the Language of Business

As a designer, your expertise might lie in the realms of user interfaces, creative problem solving and visual aesthetics. However, if you’re going to effectively convey the financial impact of your work, you’ll need to develop proficiency in the language of business.

This means understanding key concepts, metrics and terminologies used at your organization. This can seem daunting initially, but it is a critical step in bridging the gap between design and business.

Think of business terminology as another tool in your arsenal. Conversing in this language allows you to articulate your work’s value in terms that stakeholders can appreciate and understand.

Knowing how to speak about ROI, conversion rates, churn rate, etc., enables you to draw clear lines from your design decisions to revenue generation.

For a deep dive into understanding the language of business, enroll in Pragmatic’s Business Strategy & Design Course 

3 Strategies to Quantify the Impact of Design on Revenue

Increasing Conversion Rate 

Conversion rate refers to the percentage of the website or app visitors who take a desired action or “convert” based on the defined goals. This action could vary depending on the specific objectives, such as making a purchase, filling out a form, subscribing to a service, or completing any other predetermined goal.

The conversion rate is calculated by dividing the number of conversions (desired actions) by the total number of visitors and multiplying the result by 100 to express it as a percentage.

Design projects require time, effort, and resources. Conversion rate helps designers demonstrate the ROI of their work by linking design improvements to revenue generation.

Step-by-Step Guide to Demonstrate Conversion Rate 

Step 1: Establish Conversion Goals

Collaborate closely with the product team, marketing team, and leadership to clearly define the specific conversion goals. 

Step 2: Implement Conversion Tracking 

Work in collaboration with the development team to implement conversion tracking. This involves incorporating tracking codes or setting up events to capture user interactions related to the defined conversion goals.

Step 3: Design Variations

Develop distinct design variations that are expected to have a positive impact on the conversion rate. Ensure that each variation can be tracked separately.

Step 4: Conduct A/B Testing

Conduct A/B tests by randomly dividing the audience into groups, exposing each group to a different design variation. Monitor and record the conversion rates of each group during the testing phase. 

Step 5: Analyze Results

Once the A/B test has concluded and you’ve collected sufficient data, analyze the results to determine the impact of design on conversion rates.

Step 5: Calculate Conversion Rate Lift

Calculate the percentage increase or decrease in conversion rate for the winning design variation compared to the control or original design. This conversion rate lift quantifies the impact of design on improving or diminishing conversion performance.

Step 6: Calculate Revenue Impact 

Collaborate closely with the business team to determine the average revenue generated per conversion. Multiply the conversion rate lift (expressed as a decimal) by the average revenue per conversion to calculate the revenue impact attributed to the design changes.

Improving Customer Feedback 

By actively listening to customer feedback and making iterative design improvements, designers can enhance user satisfaction, increase conversions, and drive revenue growth. The feedback serves as a crucial feedback loop, allowing designers to align the design with user needs, preferences and business objectives, resulting in improved financial performance.

Step-by-Step Guide to Quantifying Customer Feedback 

Designers are excellent at empathy for the user, but that is challenging to quantify. Here is one method for measuring feedback and its impact on revenue. 

Step 1: Categorize and Tag Feedback

Organize customer feedback into relevant categories or themes. For example, categorize feedback on design elements, user experience, services or specific features. Assign tags to each feedback item to facilitate analysis and comparison.

Step 2: Quantify Positive and Negative Feedback

Assign numerical values to positive and negative feedback to quantify sentiment. For instance, rate positive feedback on a scale of 1-5 or assign a positive sentiment score. Similarly, rate negative feedback to quantify its severity or impact. This quantification helps establish a baseline for analyzing the overall sentiment of customer feedback.

Step 3: Correlate Feedback with Revenue Data: 

Identify patterns or correlations between specific feedback themes or sentiments and revenue data. Analyze revenue trends, such as sales volume or growth, and identify periods when customer feedback showed notable changes. This correlation strengthens the link between customer feedback and revenue impact.

Step 4: Calculate Revenue Impact

Quantify the revenue impact of customer feedback by comparing revenue metrics before and after addressing specific feedback points. If you made design improvements based on feedback, track how those changes influenced revenue performance. Calculate the revenue difference or growth percentage to attribute the impact to customer feedback and subsequent design modifications.

Conducting Competitive Analysis to Increase Market Share

Competitive analysis encourages designers to explore new design ideas and innovative approaches. By studying competitors, you can identify gaps or areas where your company’s design work can differentiate and provide unique value to customers.

Innovative design that stands out from the competition can attract more customers, increase market share, and drive revenue growth.

Step-by-Step Guide to Competitive Analysis for Designers 

Step 1: Identify Key Competitors 

Begin by identifying the key competitors in your industry or market segment. Research and select competitors that closely align with your business model, target audience or product offerings.

Step 2: Analyze Competitor Metrics

Gather relevant metrics and data about your competitors’ performance. This may include metrics such as market share, revenue growth, customer acquisition rates, conversion rates or customer satisfaction ratings. Quantify these metrics for comparison and analysis.

Step 3: Identify Design-related Factors

Identify design-related factors that may contribute to your competitors’ success. These factors could include website design, user interface, product packaging, branding, visual identity or overall user experience. Analyze how these design elements influence customer perceptions and drive your competitors’ revenue growth.

Step 4: Benchmark Design Elements

Conduct a comprehensive benchmarking exercise to evaluate and compare your design elements with your competitors. Analyze the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors’ designs, identifying areas where they outperform you or where you excel.

Step 5: User Testing and Feedback 

Conduct user testing and gather user feedback to gauge the impact of your design elements compared to your competitors. Quantify the feedback received by categorizing it into positive, negative or neutral sentiments.

Step 6: Conversion Rate Comparison

Compare your conversion rates with those of your competitors. Analyze whether your design elements positively or negatively affect conversion rates compared to competitors. Quantify the difference in conversion rates to establish the impact of your design elements on revenue generation.

Bridging the Gap Between Design Decisions and Business Outcomes

To connect design decisions and business outcomes, familiarize yourself with the company’s business strategy. Understand the target audience, the company’s unique selling propositions (USPs) and key performance indicators (KPIs).

Once you’ve done this, you can map how your design decisions influence these factors. For instance, if the company aims to reduce churn rate, focus on how your design can improve user experience, increasing user retention. To increase market share, consider how your design can enhance the product’s appeal to the target audience.

As you make these connections, document them. Keeping a record of how each design decision influences business outcomes can be incredibly helpful when explaining your work to stakeholders. It allows you to present a clear narrative of thoughtfulness and strategic alignment, demonstrating that your designs are purposeful and effective.

Aligning design goals with business objectives facilitates effective communication with stakeholders and enables the seamless integration of design into the business strategy. This alignment strengthens the pivotal role of design within the organization. 

***

Learn More By Enrolling in Business Strategy & Design

Want to increase your business acumen and confidently communicate with key stakeholders in your organization? Pragmatic’s Business Strategy & Design course is built by designers for designers. You’ll learn how to translate your company’s strategy into design priorities, measure impact, balance desirability with viability and communicate the business value of design. 

Check out our course sneak peek and enroll

The post 3 Effective Strategies for Communicating the Impact of Design on Revenue appeared first on Pragmatic Institute - Resources.

Based in Vancouver, he works primarily with tech and creative organizations and counts Visa, Unilever, and Apple among his past clients. (Read his Apple Watch case study.)

We captured highlights from the episode in the below Q&A. (Editor’s note: This conversation has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.)

Why do you often talk about leadership being a shared responsibility? 

In the early stages, when you are the sole contributor on a team, you can still hold a leadership role. There are moments when the team will seek your expertise to solve a problem, or you may contribute by suggesting a better or alternative approach or sharing how your actions impact others. 

Leadership is the act of driving change. 

It is not a one-way activity but a two-way interaction.

As you progress and assume responsibility for a team, your leadership function becomes shared, and you become accountable for the entire team—not just as a member but also in providing pastoral care for the team. 

As you advance, your focus shifts from problem-solving to enabling others to solve problems and supporting them in their endeavors. Consequently, not only do your tasks and practices change, but also how you approach and prioritize them.

However, the most significant shift occurs in your identity. Often, individuals face challenges when they reach senior positions or aspire to have a seat at the table. They overlook the need to shift their identity. Once you attain that position, your role is no longer about campaigning; you are part of the establishment. Embracing this role and working within it while managing any accompanying anxiety is crucial. 

Many of us naturally have an anti-establishment bias driven by a desire for improvement and frustration with the status quo. While this optimism is valuable, it is essential to collaborate with others, inviting them in and seeking their input when you sit at the top table.

It’s worth noting that aspiring to that position is not necessary because it represents a different task and job; leadership is about action, not merely a position. 

What role do empathy and experience play in leadership? 

Empathy has an external application, but effective leaders apply it internally within their organizations. They develop hypotheses to understand why a person expected to contribute significantly is not doing so. 

Similarly, they seek to comprehend the reasons behind someone’s disruptive behavior or outbursts rather than simply telling them to stop. It’s natural for many of us to react with anger when faced with certain situations because we often don’t know the underlying causes unless we put in the effort.

Our present leadership style is shaped by our past experiences, and this influence can be both powerful and destructive. 

We often remain unaware of the past influencers that impact our present leadership unless we actively explore them. This can include knowledge, past experiences, and pivotal moments in our lives, such as early bosses, influential figures in our community, teachers, school groups, and even our first organization—our family. It’s not to say that everything goes back to our mom and dad, but there are often connections that emerge constantly in the work I do with leaders.

Through various activities and assessments, we evaluate current situations, compare positive and negative moments and employ tools to gain insights. 

For example, we might discover that in a specific situation, you felt idealized as a leader, with people expecting you to have perfect solutions as a designer. While part of you might have enjoyed this recognition, another part might have been terrified by it. Consequently, you might have started self-sabotaging, withdrawing or even lashing out. 

Through introspection, you might realize that earlier in your career, you had a boss who appeared ideal in public but was actually a terrible bully behind the scenes. This revelation triggers your fear of becoming a bully yourself when you feel idealized, leading to self-destructive behaviors.

Once these patterns and connections surface, it can be a relief. By connecting the dots, a simple path forward becomes apparent. However, it can be challenging to revisit these past experiences and create personal insights. It requires acknowledging, “Ah, I noticed I responded this way, and my inference as to why is tied to an earlier boss or a specific experience with a teacher that triggered my present response based on something that happened in the past.” 

It’s important to note that not every annoyance or reaction can be attributed to the past, but as leaders, it’s crucial to identify those hot buttons. Understanding the origin of your superpower, its limits, and when it veers into harmful territory allows for responsible and impactful leadership.

How can leaders instill psychological safety on their teams? 

Regarding psychological safety and empowerment, it’s not enough to simply claim that someone is safe or empowered. It requires understanding the situation and allowing space for uncertainty, anxiety, and frustration to surface. 

By “allow,” I don’t mean tolerating these emotions as the norm, but rather being empathetic. It’s about recognizing that if you were in their position, you might also feel frustrated, skeptical, doubtful, worried or hold a different point of view.

As a leader, you must acknowledge and address these emotions and uncertainties, not just assume power. It’s about embracing and sharing the uncertainty. It can be expressed as saying, “We’ve tried this before, and it didn’t work, so I’m skeptical.” 

In response, you show gratitude for their perspective and initiate a discussion to unpack the reasons behind it. This is part of your responsibility as a leader to engage with and process these emotions and thoughts. Valuable information may emerge, or it could be an opportunity to reassure and support the individual who is genuinely scared and needs comfort to work through their concerns.

In highly innovative and emotionally charged situations, there’s a lot at stake—not only from a commercial perspective, but also on a personal level. It could impact roles, jobs, or performance evaluations. It can also affect self-image and identity. 

How should leaders empower their teams? 

In a literal sense, you can practice these six strategies for empowerment: 

1. Question critical assumptions: This practice helps reassure individuals through words of affirmation. It focuses on highlighting their strengths and what they are capable of rather than dwelling on limitations.
2. Seek different perspectives: By encouraging individuals to seek different perspectives helps them build confidence in their creative thinking abilities and builds linkage.
3. Share valuable life lessons: Sharing personal vulnerability and authenticity is crucial. Understanding that others experienced similar situations provides reassurance and may offer relevant insights. It’s an effective teaching tactic that goes beyond mere instructions.
4. Introduce followers to development opportunities: When a leader steps up, it becomes an opportunity for career development. Creating space for their growth while ensuring the comfort of others fosters a supportive environment and boosts team morale.
5. Present different perspectives: This practice involves exposing one’s analytical and problem-solving practices. It’s about modeling and providing alternative viewpoints, not giving recommendations or directives. It encourages lateral thinking and expands the individual’s perspective, increasing creativity and ownership.
6. Foster ownership and creativity: The goal is to offer individuals small gifts or insights they can pick up and transform into something remarkable. Recognizing that most people possess extraordinary capabilities, these practices serve as keys to unlocking their full potential.

“How can design leaders navigate the different roles they’re asked to perform?”

Charismatic leadership encompasses empowering, envisioning and energizing. Architectural leadership involves designing, rewarding and controlling systems and organizational components. 

Designers often excel in the charismatic aspect, empowering others through visions, prototypes, ideas and inspiring research insights. They are skilled at energizing people throughout the process. Design meetings are often perceived as the most exciting part of organizations. 

However, it’s equally important for designers to develop awareness and skills in the architectural role as they advance in their careers. As individuals progress to senior leadership positions, the ability to switch between these roles or at least be aware of them becomes crucial. 

For broader organizational leadership roles, whether in corporate or board settings, it’s essential not to disengage when discussions shift toward compensation systems, market strategies or other architectural aspects. 

Some designers may even immerse themselves in areas like supply chain management, demonstrating their interest in the architectural role. However, it’s worth noting that charismatic and architectural leadership traits are often found in different individuals, with some excelling naturally in one aspect over the other.

Being self-reflective and aware of your inclinations allows for the development of complementary skills or the recognition of when to collaborate and leverage the strengths of others. 

It’s a valuable realization that, while trying to add value in areas outside your natural inclination, there’s also an opportunity to let others shine in their respective roles. By combining the strengths of charismatic and architectural leadership, a powerful duo can be formed, leading to exceptional outcomes.

Can you expand on the importance of self-awareness in leadership? 

Self-awareness is closely related to transformative leadership. Transformative leadership involves helping others self-motivate, while authentic leadership entails being self-aware of one’s motivations and effectively communicating them to foster understanding and build trust. 

Understanding the experiences and motivations of others provides deeper comprehension than relying solely on logical explanations. Sharing why one is excited, worried, or concerned about a certain aspect—whether based on logic or personal experience—is a powerful way to build trust.

Reflecting on your data and understanding personal motivations are essential to authentic leadership. It involves comprehending not only intrinsic motivation but also the reasons behind it.

To explore these motivations, I use a tool called the Innovation Leadership Map, which examines six dimensions: outlook, identity, exposure, empowerment, risk, and actualization. By analyzing good and bad leadership experiences, similar to how athletes review their performance, we can gain insights into our behaviors. 

A significant part of this process is conducting a leadership biography, reflecting on leadership role models and experiences at different stages of life. This exercise often reveals imprints of good or bad leadership and helps explain confounding behaviors in leadership roles.

The analysis of these experiences requires identifying three primary motivating anxieties: control anxiety, validation anxiety, and death anxiety (the desire for a legacy). Anxiety, in this context, refers to motivation. 

Understanding your motivating anxieties and their associated experiences helps explain frustration, energy loss and suboptimal performance. Personally articulating these motivations, such as the need for validation, safety, or a sense of legacy, creates a personal connection with others and demonstrates authenticity and self-awareness. Sharing these motivations allows others to understand the driving forces behind your decisions and actions.

Developing a personal leadership archetype is a powerful aspect of leadership development. This archetype is slightly detached from one’s true self, enabling experimentation and playfulness. 

It helps align personal energy and strengths, identify areas for improvement, and decide whether to develop weaknesses or focus on strengths. Leaders can create a concrete practice plan by envisioning the endpoint and collecting data to understand the current state.

Hone Your Design Leadership Skills in Pragmatic’s Business Strategy and Design Course

Discover how to connect your design work to your company’s business strategy, demonstrate the design’s return on investment, and contribute to strategic conversations. Pragmatic Institute’s comprehensive program empowers designers with the knowledge, tools, and vocabulary needed to align their user-centered approach with key business objectives.

Course Highlights:

• Gain a solid grounding in business strategy and its key components
• Learn to translate your company’s business strategy into design priorities
• Effectively communicate the business value of design to stakeholders
• Balance desirability and viability in your design decisions
• Measure the impact of your design work and connect it to business goals

Learn More and Enroll 

The post Leadership Essentials for Designers: Key Takeaways from Brett Macfarlane appeared first on Pragmatic Institute - Resources.

“Leadership is the act of driving change with others,” says Brett Macfarlane.

Brett Macfarlane is an organizational consultant who focuses on leadership development for innovation and change. Based in Vancouver, he works primarily with tech and creative organizations and counts Visa, Unilever, and Apple among his past clients. (Read his Apple Watch case study.)

On Design Chats, Brett goes deep on leadership as an act, not a position; his guiding principles of empathy, intent, and compassion; and insights from his work in leadership and culture development. With VP of Product Strategy Rebecca Kalogeris, Brett also discusses:

• The nuances of leadership within innovation environments—which are high risk, high reward, high emotion situations
• Brett’s six practices for leading empowered teams, from questioning critical assumptions to seeking different perspectives
• The identity shift for a designer who gets that sought-after seat at the table
• Switching between charismatic leadership (setting vision, inspiring teams) and architectural leadership (putting systems in place, delegating tasks)
• How self-awareness is key to realizing change in your organization
• …and much more

For more on leading from where you are and driving change through design, enroll in Business Strategy & Design. Learn how to tie design work to business value in this interactive, actionable course from Pragmatic Institute.

The post 6 Practices for Leading Empowered Teams with Brett Macfarlane appeared first on Pragmatic Institute - Resources.

Pragmatic Design’s newest ebook explores the world of “shareability,” and how you can leverage different techniques and strategies to engage your audience and motivate them to spread your message and expand the reach of design.

Download your copy today and learn successful story-sharing techniques to help you ensure understanding, scale your message, articulate calls to action and promote wider sharing. (You’ll even find practical, real-life examples of shareability in action.)

The post How to Make Your Design Stories Shareable appeared first on Pragmatic Institute - Resources.

“Designers need to have that commercial mindset and make sure that whatever we are doing, however we’re designing, we can articulate how that ladders up to those business kinds of goals.” – Venessa Bennett

Rebecca Kalogeris, VP of product at Pragmatic Institute, interviews Venessa Bennett on elevating the role of UX in organizations.

Venessa Bennett is the head of user experience (internal systems) at Cazoo, a U.K. retail company in the motor vehicle industry, where she’s built up and developed the UX design practice. Previously, she held product and UX design roles at eporta and Vodafone. Venessa is passionate about building inclusive and diverse teams, refining design processes, coaching individuals.

Venessa and Rebecca Discuss:

• Why designers should leverage storytelling in their work
• How to talk about design work in a way that connects to business goals
• The power of partnering with product teams
• Why you need diversity in design

Are you a designer eager to level up your career and demonstrate your value in strategic conversations? Pragmatic Institute’s Business Strategy & Design course is tailored to empower designers like you with the tools and knowledge to align your user-centered work with key business objectives.
Learn More

Unlock the power of storytelling in design with Pragmatic Institute’s Influence Through Storytelling course. Elevate your design strategy, engage teams, and create alignment by mastering the art of crafting compelling narratives.
Here’s what you’ll learn

The post How Designers Can Articulate Their Business Value with Venessa Bennett appeared first on Pragmatic Institute - Resources.

“The job of UX in games tends to be like balancing the friction point. I like to say that it’s making the easy things easy and the hard things hard.” – Cait Goodale

Rebecca Kalogeris, VP of marketing and product strategy at Pragmatic Institute, interviews Cait Goodale on the lessons designers can learn from the gaming industry. Cait is a dynamic and passionate UX design leader with a background that spans graphic design, fashion, gaming and product design. As the former head of UX at Drest, a gaming company focused on fashion and beauty, she has explored the intersection of different industries.

Cait’s journey began in graphic design, and she quickly found her niche in the overlap between the fashion and gaming worlds. Her career includes stints at major companies like Microsoft, where she worked on augmented reality projects, and King, the mobile games company behind the wildly popular Candy Crush. She also has a talent for writing; she shares her insights with the design community as the author of the Thrifted Design Leadership blog.

Cait and Rebecca Discuss:

• The role of UX and UI at gaming companies and how those roles may change depending on company size
• The role of data in game design
• Segmentation in entertainment products
• How friction impacts the gaming experience
• What “re-onboarding” is and why it’s essential to have long-term thinking about users

Learn How to Integrate Business Strategy and Your Design Role
Discover how to align your design work with business outcomes and demonstrate its value to business objectives in Pragmatic’s Business Strategy & Design course, where you’ll develop skills to participate in strategic conversations, improve cross-functional partnerships and show return on investment.
Learn More

The post The Role of UX and UI in Gaming with Cait Goodale appeared first on Pragmatic Institute - Resources.