✷ What is Strategic Design?


Strategic Design is about doing more

Design as a practice has very humble roots. For most of our history, designers swooped in at the end of the process to add artistic decoration. With no creative control over the product being created, the application of aesthetics at the end was akin to adding lipstick to a pig.

“Strategic design goes far beyond the aesthetics end of the value chain and into the contextual systems involved.”

By moving from the solution space into the problem space, strategic designers can understand the entire ecosystem of a problem. Strategic designers move into the problem space to consider the whole pig. A real strategic designer would even consider the farm, the market, and the policy that’s involved in raising pigs.

from the article What is Strategic Design?

Strategic designers like to work on the front lines of problem definition in innovative fields. Their tasks might include aligning the company’s vision with product ecosystems, co-creating with high-level stakeholders, or launching new ventures. They strive to be the drivers of decisions, practices, and behaviors within organizations. They’re often found working at innovation hubs, startup incubators, design consultancies, or anywhere the problem space is still being defined.

Insights from a Strategic Designer

Last week, Adam Zeiner gave a talk for our Guild meetup, and he shared some insights from his working practice in strategic design. This slide was one of my favorites. I love a good framework...

I took this screenshot from Adam's talk

Do UX/UI, product, and service designers have an opportunity to move into strategic design? I think so.

The topic of Adam's talk was speculative design. Still, it was really interesting to see how he tied his vocational work in strategic design to his avocational pursuits in design futures.

You can watch the talk by clicking the thumbnail below:

Design Makes Futures Talk from Adam Zeiner
Click the here to watch the talk on YouTube

Adam was kind enough to share his slides in Figma (please use responsibly).

Adam is a great example of a designer that lives in big problem spaces, and his talk got me thinking about the "wicked problems" in this world.

I walked away from Adam's talk with one big question:

How can we use our design practice to make a dent in this messy world?

Until next week, keep exploring the problem space.

-Jeff Humble

Co-Founder of the Fountain Institute

P.S. If you want to learn more about Strategic Design, check out this article called "What is Strategic Design?"

The Fountain Institute

The Fountain Institute is an independent online school that teaches advanced UX & product skills.

Read more from The Fountain Institute

When Your Strategy Slides Hit Silence By Hannah Baker Dear Reader, I’ve shared strategy before, and watched it stall. Not because it was wrong. But because the room didn’t know what to do with it. I wasn’t looking for feedback. I wasn’t asking for approval. I was hoping they’d pick it up and run with it. Instead? Confusion. Silence. They didn’t see what I saw. Not because they didn’t care. But because I’d built the strategy, not the on-ramp they needed to step into it. It’s something I’ve...

Let's Talk about Liquid Glass by Jeff Humble Dear Reader, Goodbye, paper-like design. Hello, moving blobs of liquid glass! Play button blunder from Apple Apple's new paradigm in aesthetics is both cool and potentially awful at the same time. "Rather than trying to simply re-create a material from the physical world, Liquid Glass is a new digital meta-material that dynamically bends and shapes light." -Apple Just when you thought skeuomorphism was dead, it rears its realistic head again. I...

Assumption Olympics: Why I Always Win Gold in Overreacting By Hannah Baker Dear Reader, I once pitched a new workshop format to a team of collaborators. One person nodded slowly and said, “Hmm… okay.” That was it. I smiled. Externally, totally composed. Internally? I sprinted up a mental staircase of conclusions: They don’t like it. They’re being polite. They think I’m not strategic. This was a bad idea. I’ve blown this opportunity. Maybe I’m not cut out for this work. I didn’t realize I was...