Product Design   •   May 29th, 2024  •   by Dan Olsavsky

Elevating excellence isn’t just a goal in product design; it’s essential for staying competitive and meeting user expectations. This week, we explore strategies to scale and strengthen design teams for optimal performance. Through assessing current practices, building a strong foundation, strategic hiring, and commitment to scaling, organizations can enhance their product design teams effectively. This guide outlines actionable steps and strategies to navigate this journey towards product design excellence.

Understanding UX Maturity

UX maturity measures an organization’s ability and commitment to delivering user-centered design. It encompasses the quality and consistency of research and design processes, resources, tools, and operations, as well as the organization’s support and commitment to UX through leadership, workforce, and culture. Assessing UX maturity helps organizations understand their current strengths and weaknesses and provides a roadmap for improvement.

The UX Maturity Model

The UX Maturity Model¹ offers a framework to evaluate an organization’s UX capabilities across six stages:

1. Absent: UX is ignored or nonexistent.
2. Limited: UX work is rare, haphazard, and lacks importance.
3. Emergent: UX efforts are functional but inconsistent and inefficient.
4. Structured: UX processes are semi-systematic and widespread but vary in effectiveness.
5. Integrated: Comprehensive and effective UX work is pervasive across the organization.
6. User-Driven: Dedication to UX at all levels results in deep insights and exceptional user-centered outcomes.

Factors in UX Maturity

To improve UX maturity, organizations should focus on:

• Strategy: UX leadership, planning, and resource prioritization.
• Culture: Cultivating UX knowledge and career growth for practitioners.
• Process: Systematic use of UX research and design methods.
• Outcomes: Defining and measuring UX results.

None of these factors stand alone; they reinforce and enable each other. A holistic approach to these factors is essential to advance UX maturity and realize the full value of user-centered design.

Assessing Current Processes and Practices

In assessing your current design processes and practices, it’s crucial to identify both the strengths and areas for improvement within your workflow. This evaluation will provide insights into what aspects of your design practices are functioning well and where you face challenges. This will help your organization to optimize your processes for greater efficiency and effectiveness.

Assessment of Current Practices:

• What aspects of our current design practice work well, and why?
• Where do we encounter bottlenecks or inefficiencies?

Tools and Technologies:

• Are the tools and technologies we use meeting our needs?
• Are there any new tools or technologies we should consider adopting?

Design Standards and Guidelines:

• Do we have a comprehensive set of design standards and guidelines?
• How well are these guidelines communicated and adhered to?

A thorough evaluation of your current design processes and practices will highlight your strengths and uncover areas that need improvement. By addressing these aspects, your organization can streamline workflows, adopt better tools and technologies, and ensure adherence to design standards, ultimately enhancing the overall quality and consistency of your design efforts.

Building a Strong Foundation

Establishing a solid foundation is crucial for scaling and strengthening your product design team. This involves making sure that the basics are robust and well-defined. 

Clear Design Vision and Strategy

A clear design vision and strategy are essential for aligning the team’s efforts with the company’s overall goals. This means defining a long-term vision that inspires and guides the team. For example:

• Vision Statement: Develop a vision statement that encapsulates the desired user experience. For instance, “We aim to create intuitive, accessible, and delightful digital experiences that empower users in their daily lives.”
• Strategic Goals: Set strategic goals that support the vision. These might include improving user satisfaction scores, increasing engagement metrics, or achieving design awards.

By having a clear vision and strategy, the team can prioritize their work and make design decisions that support the broader business objectives.

Design Systems

Implementing a design system ensures consistency and efficiency across all design efforts. A design system includes a set of reusable components, guidelines, and standards that help maintain a coherent visual and interaction language across products. For example:

• Component Library: Create a library of UI components, such as buttons, forms, and navigation elements, that can be reused across different projects. This saves time and ensures a consistent user experience.
• Style Guide: Develop a comprehensive style guide that includes typography, color palettes, iconography, and other visual elements. This guide should be accessible to everyone involved in the design process.

A well-maintained design system helps streamline the design process, reduces redundancy, and ensures that all team members are on the same page.

Tools and Resources

Ensuring that the team has access to the latest design tools and resources is critical for efficiency and innovation. This includes:

• Design Software: Invest in industry-standard design tools like Figma that facilitate collaborative design work and prototyping.
• User Research Tools: Provide access to tools like UserTesting, Marvin, and Hotjar for conducting usability tests, gathering user feedback, and analyzing user behavior.
• Collaboration Platforms: Use platforms such as Slack, Trello, or Asana to enhance communication and project management within the team.

By equipping the team with the right tools and resources, you empower them to work more effectively and produce higher-quality designs.

Hiring and Team Structure

To effectively scale your product design team, a strategic approach to hiring and team structure is essential. This involves assessing current skills, fostering professional development, ensuring diverse talent, organizing teams efficiently, and establishing strong leadership.

In this video, Joel Califa (former Product Designer at GitHub) shares a framework and his lessons learned on how to structure design teams that meet business and organizational needs, how to determine who to hire, and how to set those hires up for success.

Skills Assessment

A thorough skills assessment helps identify the strengths and weaknesses within your team, ensuring you have the necessary expertise to meet current and future design challenges. Consider the following steps:

• Inventory of Skills: Conduct a skills inventory to map out the existing capabilities within your team. For example, list skills such as UX research, UI design, interaction design, prototyping, and accessibility.
• Gap Analysis: Identify areas where your team lacks expertise. For instance, if your team is strong in UI design but lacks UX research skills, consider hiring or training team members in that area.

Addressing these gaps can involve hiring new talent, outsourcing certain tasks, or upskilling current employees through training programs and workshops.

Professional Development

Continuous learning and professional development are crucial for keeping your team updated with the latest trends and best practices in design. Here are some strategies:

• Training Programs: Offer access to online courses, workshops, and certifications from platforms like Coursera, Udemy, and Nielsen Norman Group. For example, a course on advanced UX research methods can enhance your team’s research capabilities.
• Conferences and Events: Encourage attendance at design conferences such as UXPA, Interaction Design Association (IxDA) events, or SmashingConf. These events provide networking opportunities and exposure to cutting-edge ideas and technologies.
• Internal Knowledge Sharing: Organize regular knowledge-sharing sessions where team members present recent learnings or case studies. This can foster a culture of continuous improvement and collective growth.

Supporting ongoing education helps keep your team motivated and ensures they are well-equipped to tackle evolving design challenges.

Diverse Talent

Hiring designers with varied skill sets ensures a well-rounded team capable of addressing different aspects of design. Consider the following roles:

• UX Researchers: Focus on understanding user behaviors and needs through qualitative and quantitative research.
• UI Designers: Specialize in creating visually appealing and user-friendly interfaces.
• Interaction Designers: Design interactive elements that enhance user engagement and experience.
• Content Designers: Craft meaningful and user-centered content that guides and informs users effectively.
• Design System Manager: oversees the creation, maintenance, and implementation of a cohesive design system to ensure consistency and efficiency across all design projects within an organization.
• Graphic Designers: Enhances the aesthetics and user experience of digital products, complementing the skills of UX designers and UI developers.

By building a diverse team, you can ensure comprehensive coverage of all design aspects and foster innovation through varied perspectives.

Team Structure

Organizing teams into efficient structures can significantly impact productivity and collaboration. Choosing the right structure depends on your organization’s size, culture, and specific needs. Consider these approaches:

• Cross-Functional Squads or Pods: Form small, cross-functional teams that include designers, developers, product managers, and other relevant roles. Each squad focuses on specific product areas or features, enabling tight collaboration and faster iteration. For example, a “Mobile App Squad” might focus solely on the mobile user experience.
• Centralized vs. Decentralized Teams: Decide whether to centralize the design function under a single leadership or embed designers within different product teams. Centralized teams benefit from shared resources and consistent standards, while decentralized teams might be more agile and responsive to specific project needs.

Leadership

Strong leadership is crucial for advocating the value of design at the highest level. Consider appointing a design executive, such as a Chief Creative Officer (CCO), Chief Experience Officer (CXO) or VP of Design, to lead the design vision and strategy. Having dedicated design leadership ensures that design has a voice in executive-level decisions and helps build a strong, cohesive design culture.

• Advocacy: A design executive can champion the importance of design in strategic discussions and decision-making processes. They can ensure design considerations are integrated into business goals and priorities.
• Mentorship and Growth: Leaders can mentor junior designers, fostering a culture of growth and development. They can also attract top talent by establishing the company as a design-forward organization.

Effective hiring and a well-structured team are key to scaling your product design efforts. By conducting a skills assessment, promoting professional development, hiring diverse talent, organizing efficient team structures, and establishing strong leadership, you can create a dynamic and capable design team. This foundation will enable your organization to meet current challenges and adapt to future opportunities, ultimately leading to better-designed products and improved user experiences.

Scaling and Future Growth

As your company continues to expand, scaling your design practice effectively becomes increasingly important. This involves addressing the challenges associated with growth, implementing strategies to ensure scalable design processes, and enhancing your knowledge-sharing and documentation practices.

Scaling Practices

Scaling a design practice presents several challenges that need strategic solutions:

• Maintaining Consistency: As the team grows, maintaining design consistency across various products and platforms can become challenging. For example, inconsistencies in button styles or navigation patterns can confuse users and dilute the brand experience. Implementing a robust design system that includes a comprehensive library of reusable components and guidelines allows designers to share and collaborate on the same design components.

• Coordination Across Teams: With more teams working on different projects, coordinating efforts and ensuring alignment can be difficult. Try establishing cross-functional squads that include designers, developers, and product managers focused on specific product areas. Regular inter-team meetings and shared documentation can help keep everyone aligned.

• Scaling Research Efforts: Conducting user research at scale requires significant resources and coordination. Develop a centralized user research repository where insights and data from various studies are stored and easily accessible. Tools like Dovetail or EnjoyHQ can facilitate this.

• Talent Acquisition and Retention: Attracting and retaining skilled designers is crucial for scaling. You can build a strong employer brand by promoting the company’s commitment to design excellence. Offering competitive salaries, career advancement opportunities, and a supportive work environment can help attract top talent, too.

Knowledge Sharing and Documentation

Effective knowledge sharing and documentation are critical for scaling design practices, ensuring continuity, and fostering a culture of continuous improvement.

Current State of Documentation

Assess how well you document your design processes, decisions, and outcomes. Are these documents easily accessible and understandable for all team members? If design decisions are often discussed verbally and not documented, this can lead to confusion and inconsistencies. Creating a central repository for all design documentation, such as a Confluence or Notion workspace, can help address this issue.

Improving Documentation Practices

Process Documentation: Ensure that all design processes are well-documented, including step-by-step guides for key activities like user research, prototyping, and usability testing. For example, a documented process for usability testing should include how to recruit participants, conduct tests, and analyze results.

Decision Logs: Maintain logs of design decisions and the rationale behind them. This can help new team members understand the context of past decisions and provide a reference for future projects.

Outcome Reporting: Document the outcomes of design projects, including successes and lessons learned. This can include case studies, project retrospectives, and metrics reports that highlight the impact of design efforts on business goals.

Enhancing Knowledge Sharing

Regular Knowledge-Sharing Sessions: Organize regular sessions where team members can share insights, tools, and techniques they have discovered. For example, a weekly or bi-weekly design critique session can help share feedback and learnings across the team.

Collaborative Platforms: Use collaborative platforms like Miro for brainstorming and whiteboarding sessions, and Slack channels dedicated to design topics to facilitate ongoing communication and knowledge exchange.

Mentorship Programs: Establish mentorship programs where experienced designers mentor junior team members. This can help transfer knowledge and skills while fostering a supportive team culture.

A Practical Plan for Scaling

Phase 1: Foundation

• Assess current maturity
• Establish a clear design vision and strategy
• Appoint a design executive (e.g. CCO or CXO)
• Implement a design system 

Phase 2: Growth

• Hire diverse talent and build cross-functional teams
• Invest in tools and continuous learning
• Integrate design thinking at all levels

Phase 3: Optimization

• Refine processes based on feedback
• Measure and analyze design impact
• Foster a culture of continuous improvement and innovation

Scaling and future growth require strategic planning and execution. By addressing scaling challenges, implementing effective strategies, and enhancing knowledge-sharing and documentation practices, you can ensure that your design processes scale smoothly and continue to deliver high-quality user experiences. Focusing on these areas will enable us to maintain consistency, foster collaboration, and support the ongoing development of your design team as your company grows.

Championing Quality from the Top Down and Bottom Up

To truly champion quality in product design, it is essential to approach it from both the top-down and bottom-up perspectives. This holistic approach ensures that design excellence is embedded at every level of the organization, fostering a culture of continuous improvement and innovation.

Top-Down Approach

• Executive Support: Ensuring that the executive team understands and values design is crucial. A Chief Creative Officer (CCO) should report directly to the CEO or another top executive to highlight the strategic importance of design within the organization. This high-level endorsement can significantly influence the company’s commitment to design excellence.
• Design Thinking Culture: Integrating design thinking into the company culture involves more than just the design team. Encourage executives and other leaders to participate in design sprints and workshops. This involvement helps create a shared understanding and appreciation of user-centered design principles across the leadership team.
• Investment in Design: Allocating a sufficient budget for design initiatives is vital. This includes funding for specialized roles, design tools, training, team growth, and research activities. Investment demonstrates a tangible commitment to design and provides the necessary resources for the team to thrive.

Bottom-Up Approach

• Continuous Learning: Encouraging ongoing education is essential for maintaining a cutting-edge design team. This can be achieved through workshops, conferences, online courses, and other professional development opportunities. Staying current with industry trends and best practices ensures that the team remains innovative and effective.
• Feedback Mechanisms: Implementing regular design critiques and feedback sessions fosters a culture of continuous improvement. These sessions should be constructive and focused on growth, allowing designers to refine their skills and produce higher-quality work.
• Empowerment: Empowering designers to take ownership of their projects encourages innovation and creativity. Providing the autonomy to make design decisions and explore new ideas can lead to more engaging and effective user experiences.

Handling Lack of Prioritization

If design isn’t currently a priority at your company, here are some tips to help you convince them of its importance:

• Educate Stakeholders: Show the value of design through case studies and data.
• Quick Wins: Deliver small, high-impact design improvements to demonstrate value.
• Internal Advocacy: The CCO or design leaders should consistently communicate the importance of design in meetings and strategy sessions.

Championing quality in product design requires a concerted effort from both leadership and individual team members. By ensuring executive support, fostering a design thinking culture, and investing in design from the top down, while also promoting continuous learning, feedback, and empowerment from the bottom up, organizations can create an environment where design excellence flourishes. This integrated approach not only enhances the quality of design outputs but also strengthens the overall user experience and drives business success.

Establish Metrics to Measure the Impact and Quality of Design

To effectively champion quality in design, it’s crucial to establish clear metrics that evaluate both the impact and quality of design work. These metrics provide tangible data that can guide decision-making, demonstrate the value of design to stakeholders, and identify areas for improvement.

User Satisfaction

Surveys: Implement regular user satisfaction surveys to gather feedback directly from users. These surveys can include questions about the overall user experience, ease of use, visual appeal, and specific features. Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a useful metric to gauge user loyalty and satisfaction.

Example: After launching a new feature, send out a survey asking users to rate their satisfaction on a scale from 1 to 10 and provide qualitative feedback on their experience.

Usability Testing: Conduct usability testing sessions where users interact with the product while completing specific tasks. Measure success rates, error rates, and the time taken to complete tasks to identify usability issues and areas for improvement.

Example: Before a major release, invite users to participate in usability tests to observe how easily they can navigate new features and complete core tasks.

Design Efficiency

Time Tracking: Track the time taken for each phase of the design process, from initial concept to final product. This includes ideation, prototyping, user testing, iteration, and final implementation.

Example: Use project management tools like Jira or Trello to log hours spent on each task and stage of the design process. Analyze this data to identify bottlenecks or stages that consistently take longer than expected.

Iteration Cycles: Monitor the number of iterations required before reaching the final design. Fewer iterations can indicate a more efficient design process, whereas a high number of iterations might suggest the need for better initial planning or clearer design briefs.

Example: Document each version of the design and the changes made in each iteration. Review these iterations to identify patterns and opportunities for process improvements.

Business Impact

Conversion Rates: Measure how design changes impact key conversion metrics, such as sign-ups, purchases, or other desired user actions. A/B testing can be particularly useful for understanding the effect of design variations on conversion rates.

Example: After redesigning a landing page, run an A/B test comparing the old design with the new one to see which version drives higher conversion rates.

User Retention: Track user retention rates to see how design improvements influence users’ likelihood to continue using the product over time. Higher retention rates often correlate with a better user experience.

Example: Implement cohort analysis to track the retention rates of users who experienced different versions of the product. Compare these rates to determine the impact of specific design changes.

Revenue Impact: Assess how design improvements affect overall revenue. This can include measuring the increase in sales, average order value, or customer lifetime value attributable to design enhancements.

Example: If a redesigned checkout process results in a smoother and quicker transaction experience, analyze the subsequent impact on sales and revenue metrics.

By establishing and monitoring these metrics, organizations can gain a comprehensive understanding of how design efforts impact user satisfaction, design efficiency, and key business outcomes. This data-driven approach not only validates the importance of design but also provides actionable insights to continuously enhance the quality and effectiveness of design work. Regularly reviewing and refining these metrics ensures that the design team remains aligned with organizational goals and user needs, fostering a culture of continuous improvement and excellence in design.

Collaboration and Communication

Effective collaboration and communication are essential for the success of any design team. By evaluating current practices and identifying areas for improvement, you can enhance the way your teams work together and share information.

Team Collaboration

• Effectiveness: Assess how well designers collaborate with developers, product managers, and other stakeholders. Regular meetings, clear project briefs, and shared goals are key indicators of effective collaboration.
• Improvements: Utilize collaborative tools like Figma or Miro for real-time feedback. Foster a culture of open communication through regular sync-ups and joint workshops.

Communication Channels

• Effectiveness: Evaluate if current channels like Slack or Teams are effective for sharing design ideas, feedback, and updates. Ensure feedback loops are structured and documented.
• Improvements: Establish clear guidelines for sharing updates. Use visual aids like mockups and prototypes. Provide training on effective communication skills to help articulate ideas and feedback.

Improving collaboration and communication will lead to a more cohesive and efficient design process, ultimately enhancing the quality of your products and user experiences.

Feedback and Reflection

Regular feedback and reflection are vital for continuous improvement in design practices. By refining feedback mechanisms and learning from past projects, you can enhance the overall quality of your designs.

Feedback Mechanisms

• Effectiveness: Assess how well you gather and act on feedback from users and stakeholders. Effective mechanisms include regular usability tests, surveys, and stakeholder reviews.
• Improvements: Streamline feedback loops by scheduling consistent review sessions and utilizing tools like UserTesting for real-time insights. Encourage open and constructive feedback in a structured manner.

Reflecting on Past Projects

• Lessons Learned: Identify key takeaways from both successful and unsuccessful projects. Document what worked well and what didn’t.
• Application: Apply these lessons to future projects by integrating successful strategies and avoiding past mistakes. Regularly update best practices based on these reflections.

By strengthening your feedback processes and reflecting on past experiences, you can continually improve your design practices and deliver better user experiences.

Actionable Steps

To strengthen and scale your design practice, it’s essential to set clear goals and develop a detailed implementation plan. This approach ensures that you make tangible progress and hold yourselves accountable.

Setting Goals

• Specific Goals: Define clear objectives, such as improving design consistency, increasing user satisfaction, or enhancing collaboration between teams.
• Measuring Progress: Establish metrics to track your progress, such as user feedback scores, time to market for design projects, and the frequency of cross-functional meetings.

Implementation Plan

• Immediate Steps: Identify quick wins, like adopting new design tools, conducting training sessions, and improving documentation practices.
• Responsibility and Timeline: Assign specific team members to lead each initiative and set realistic deadlines. Regularly review progress to ensure you stay on track.

By setting precise goals and developing a structured implementation plan, you can effectively address areas for improvement and achieve your vision for a stronger, more scalable design practice.

Parting Words

Scaling and strengthening your product design team requires strategic leadership, clear processes, continuous learning, and a strong culture of design thinking. By following the outlined plan, you can ensure that design quality is championed from both the top down and bottom up, ultimately leading to better products and a more innovative company.

1. Pernice, K., Gibbons, S., Moran, K., & Whitenton, K. (2021, June 13). The 6 Levels of UX Maturity. Nielsen Norman Group. Retrieved from https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ux-maturity-model/