Save $200 off per course or workshop—now through 3/31! Use code CERT2025.

Creative team meeting

Expand The Influence Of Your Design Team

View Courses
Train My Team

Trusted By

Pragmatic Design video thumbnail

Grow the Strategic
Impact of Design

Pragmatic Institute’s design practice empowers designers to contribute strategically. We help designers extend their reach by combining business acumen with user advocacy to uncover new opportunities to create value and strengthen partnerships across the organization.

Our learning experiences are developed by design practitioners, instructional designers and industry leaders—focusing on interactive learning and practical application. With an ecosystem of training, resources and community, our design practice builds on Pragmatic’s reputation as a transformational partner to 200,000 alumni and counting.

Design Courses

Data-driven design

Data-Driven Design

PARTNERSHIP WITH DESIGNLAB

Confidently integrate UX analytics and product data into every step of the design process.
  • MID & SENIOR DESIGNERS
  • 6 WEEK COMPLETION TIME
Enroll
Learn More
Advanced Figma

Advanced Figma

PARTNERSHIP WITH DESIGNLAB

Leverage Figma’s advanced features to optimize workflows and create scalable design systems.
  • EXPERIENCED DESIGNERS
  • 4 WEEK COMPLETION TIME / 4-6 HOURS WEEKLY
Enroll
Learn More
AI for Visual Design

AI for Visual Design

PARTNERSHIP WITH DESIGNLAB

Integrate AI tools into design workflows to enhance creative processes, automate tasks, and efficiently generate high-quality visual content.
  • EXPERIENCED DESIGNERS
  • 4 WEEK COMPLETION TIME / 4-6 HOURS WEEKLY
Enroll
Learn More
Business Strategy and Design

Business Strategy & Design

INCREASE THE IMPACT OF DESIGN ON BUSINESS STRATEGY

Confidently connect design work to business outcomes by measuring its strategic impact, aligning user-centered efforts with business objectives, and strengthening cross-functional partnerships.
  • NEW & EXPERIENCED DESIGNERS
  • 7 HOUR COMPLETION TIME / 1 OR 2 DAY SESSIONS
Enroll
Learn More

Influence Through Storytelling

HARNESS THE POWER OF DESIGN STORYTELLING TO GROW YOUR INFLUENCE

Use strategic storytelling to enhance collaboration, build influence, and drive change by showcasing design impact, advocating for users, and aligning stakeholders around a shared vision.
  • NEW & EXPERIENCED DESIGNERS
  • 7 HOUR COMPLETION TIME / 1 OR 2 DAY SESSIONS
Enroll
Learn More

Meet The Pragmatic Design Instructors

Shannon McGarity Lead Instructor Shannon McGarity has spent more than 20 years solving clients’ design challenges in roles ranging from head of product to UX director. Prior to Pragmatic, Shannon was a director at strategic design firms Cooper and Designit—leading teams on projects, creating curriculum, coaching innovation teams and teaching service design, design leadership and more. She is also a Certified Professional Co-Active Coach, focusing on leadership coaching. [Photo by Corey Sipkin]
Teresa Brazen Instructor Teresa Brazen has spent 15+ years working in the design industry as a design consultant, educator, business leader and executive coach. She’s helped teams at NASA, Rail Europe, Cisco, Clorox, Charles Schwab and more adopt human-centered ways of working and designing products and services. Prior to Pragmatic, Teresa spearheaded the global expansion of Cooper Professional Education—a leader in design and creative leadership training—to 10 countries. Her mission today is to help professionals expand their potential and increase their impact.
Lisa Pertoso Instructor Lisa Pertoso is a learning designer, facilitator and organizational coach. The driving force behind her 20+ year career is helping leaders prepare for the future of work by developing our most important human skills: adaptability, communication, creativity, innovation, empathy and self-awareness. Lisa has educated design, tech, business and nonprofit leaders in the U.S., Asia, Australia and Europe. Her past clients include BMW Group, Brooklyn Public Library, Hyper Island, Parsons School of Design and TBWA. [Photo by Reuben Hernandez]
Lisa Pertoso

Featured Resources

Find more expert insights, actionable advice and thought leadership in every format in the Pragmatic Design resource library.

Aligning Design Activities to Business Strategy

Want to boost the impact of design? Determine your company’s strategy so you can be intentional in your recommendation of design activities. Read about four types of company strategy, common...
Read More >

Facilitation Guide for Achieving Strategic Goals

Planning to facilitate a strategy discussion, workshop, or alignment session? Use this step-by-step guide for designers, which shares best practices, helpful reminders, sample activities and tools.
Read More >

6 Practices for Leading Empowered Teams with Brett Macfarlane

Brett Macfarlane is an organizational consultant who focuses on leadership development. On Design Chats, Brett discusses his work with Apple, the nuances of leadership in high-innovation environments...
Read More >

Get the details on new courses and check out our latest thought leadership and resources for designers.

Subscribe
Pragmatic Design eBook Covers
Testimonials

What your peers are saying

Storytelling, like products, deserves thought, care and user-centricity. I liked how this course solidified concepts by connecting them to real stories and examples—weaving in learning with interactive and engaging activities. I realized the importance of not just what you say but also how you say it.
Yvonne RomeroDesign Lead at ustwo
I loved everything about Business Strategy & Design; it was valuable and fun. The course helps you better understand how to align with business needs and partners, speak the same language and manage expectations in both directions. Now, in early conversations with project teams, I can actually inject my understanding and perspective and start to influence what the strategy might be.
Matt RussellExperience Design Senior Manager at Pfizer
Influence Through Storytelling was an engaging course that offered great collaboration with new folks and an intuitive process for storytelling. Now, I can improve my storytelling to have a more compelling rationale for designs and get buy in. And I can communicate more effectively with the cross-functional team.
Steffi GogoiSenior User Experience Designer at ADP
Business Strategy & Design shows how design tools can be applied to business and product goal setting. The emphasis on using design skills to solve internal communication, prioritization and cross-functional problems—not just product ones—was a really helpful takeaway. And the through-line of examples made it feel pragmatic.
Eric BellPrincipal Product Designer at Vineti
Storytelling is not just about presenting mocks! In this interactive course, you’ll learn effective storytelling methods and apply them to your real-world scenario. Everyone on my design team should take this class.
Holly TiwariPrincipal Product Designer at Stitch Fix
Business Strategy & Design is a great course for designers and design leaders alike! It shares how business and product strategy are defined to better inform your design approach and priorities and help you communicate more easily with cross-functional team members. It provides a lot of useful, actionable frameworks.
Ashley WillhiteHead of UX at Addi
Influence Through Storytelling gives a blueprint on how to build your storytelling skills and present design work to just about anyone.
Magdalena KabelisProduct Designer at Fidelity Investments
Business Strategy & Design shares great insights into how design impacts business goals and vice versa. I would especially recommend it to designers who work closely with product managers.
Filip AleksandrowPrincipal Designer at Microsoft

Pragmatic Design Certification

Stand out from the crowd with Pragmatic Design certifications. Our certifications enable you to easily share your strategic design skills with your network.

Interested in Team Training?

Get in contact with our sales team today!

Subscribe

Subscribe

Pragmatic Institute Resources