Conference Recap: Design Matters ’18
Sept 26–27, 2018 in Copenhagen, DK
The SmartRecruiters’ design team had the chance to attend the Design Matters 2018 conference in Copenhagen last month, and it was a wonderful opportunity to hear from the global product design scene. Throughout our two days, we were inspired by the innovative directions design work is taking as industries adapt to emerging new technologies and rapidly changing user behaviors.
All in all, the event was a refreshing reminder for how we can more fully reconnect with user empathy in our work. We are excited to take back renewed energy to our teams in San Francisco, Berlin and Krakow. Thanks to the Design Matters team for making it all happen 💪🏽
Our main takeaways are summarized below:
Why design matters: our work affects people
Though it may not exactly save the world, design still matters because as designers, we ideally consider our works’ place in the bigger picture — what are the repercussions of business and design decisions on individuals (and on a global scale)? If you’re designing grocery apps — how does the payment and tip design affect the people who shop and deliver groceries, or if you create medical software — in what ways does the interface affect how doctors provide proper care?
Many speakers were very generous about sharing their experience in designing products that affect people’s daily work and life, especially when it comes to this question:
How to balance being a responsible human with designing products for businesses?
- Kyle Peatt, Director of UX at Shopify discussed why enterprise design matters, and reminds us that people who buy the software do not equal people who use it. If “Product design is about making life more enjoyable” — then we must think about end users just as much as just the people who are making the financial decisions to purchase software.
- Alyson Nakamura, Designer at Charity : Water sprinted with her team to gain trust and inspire impactful generosity from donors who care about providing clean water to underserved populations around the world. She believes design thinking is “transforming our understanding of and responsibility to social good right now,” and that “designers are needed more than ever.”
- Masuma Henry, Design Director at Amazon gave attendees practical questions to ask during our everyday design processes. How can we make sure to align our values to what actually gets shipped in the product?
- Benjamin Hersh, Design Lead at Medium focused on the impact of good UX copy, and three rules: Be clear, Be a friend, Be expressive. Legal text is no exception (we’re looking at you, GDPR notifications) 🌍
The Value of Design, and Forming a Design Culture
The value of design is often misunderstood by stakeholders, and designers — a naturally creative, qualitative bunch, hyper-focused on empathy — often forget to add “communicating the business value of design” to their arsenal of design superpowers (a.k.a. empathizing with our collaborators!)
One of the best ways to do this is to gather data, which is tough to do when design as a strategic practice often doesn’t directly correlate to solid KPIs. Thankfully, we saw some clear quantitative numbers from McKinsey, who surveyed hundreds of companies about the financial impact of design practices within an organization.
Part of investing properly in design as a key part of your organization means forming a design culture that works with creatives. Key tactics shared were to create safe spaces, treating each other like the humans, and keeping things meaningful.
- Anisha Jain from Dropbox placed rules on her design team’s everyday practices — but the fun kind: like no meetings Monday mornings, taking 1:1’s outside, and “spark talks” where designers share knowledge among their team. Little adjustments make a big difference for culture and environment.
- Anna Back, Pedro Tolipan and Ben Sheppard from McKinsey Design (mentioned above) hosted two valuable sessions that gave us perspective on what it means to elevate the perception of design’s role in a company, and ways to connect design to revenue growth to demonstrate how “design is more than a feeling”
There’s Purpose in the Details
There were quite a few more talented speakers that we didn’t call out, but overall, this conference by designers for designers tapped deeply into the soul of design. It reminded us of the core of why we do what we do, and how we can increase our positive impact while pushing the evolving world to its greatest potential.
On another level, we were also able to experience the Scandinavian approach to problem-solving and aesthetics firsthand — whether traveling seamlessly from bus, to train, to air, or enjoying a cozy dinner atmosphere in the city, it was a joy to soak in the sense of ease that permeates through Danish design in everyday life. Perhaps the high World Happiness Rankings for Denmark have the cultural concept of hygge to thank (hygge means “cozy,” “intentional intimacy”), but we think the Danes’ attention to delightful detail and their history of collaborative cultural exchange has a lot to do with it, too.
Perfectly mirroring what we learned at the conference itself, Copenhagen’s culture, history and and pace demonstrated clearly that their perspective on design revolves heavily around the question of quality: Does it improve my life, or doesn’t it? It’s a core design value we can get behind.
Special thanks to Michael Christensen and the Design Matters team for having us. We would definitely attend again in 2019- learn more at designmatters.io, and don’t miss the next one 🙌🏽
