Magnus Deuling

Great design delivers value to users faster. In my Glaringly Obvious conversation with Thomas Sutton, he made the case that product design teams must clearly define what design quality means, own it, and connect it directly to both user and business value. Without this clarity, design risks being misunderstood, undervalued, and ineffective. Love the conversation, check it out: https://lnkd.in/gVTU5jS5 Thomas’s product design quality framework maps a causal chain: → If design, technology, and support are good, people use the product. → If people use it and it works, you get product outcomes like user benefit, business value, and systemic impact. But here’s where it got me thinking: the speed of that chain matters. → Time to value for users How quickly someone feels the product is usable, useful, and enjoyable. → Time to create value for users   How fast the team can release improvements that increase that value. These two clocks run in parallel. When teams reduce the lag between user benefit and product iteration, design signals become clearer, trust builds faster, and business value compounds sooner. When they drift apart, users wait too long to see progress, and teams stall in endless refinement. In my conversations, here are some of the reasons decisions slow down: 1. Teams wait too long to test ideas, losing momentum. 2. They don’t have fast, clear ways to see what’s working. 3. Design work gets stuck in narrow solutions or tech limitations. 4. Research is incomplete, feedback overlooked, or siloed. 5. Too much refinement, not enough real signals. 6. Confirmation bias clouds decisions. 7.  Leaders struggle to align on user needs vs. business goals. 8. Limited resources stall iteration. That’s where collecting the right signals comes in. In our open framework Glare, we use UX metrics like usability, usefulness, and sentiment to quickly test whether design quality is landing. Helio helps us gather the metrics. They shorten both timelines: showing where users already get value, and where teams must act to deliver more. Building on Thomas’s framework: design quality goes beyond end outcomes. Quality also ensures the path to those outcomes is fast, clear, and measurable. #productdesign #uxmetrics #productdiscovery #uxresearch

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Are you struggling to connect user insights to business impact? If you're in design or research, you know the challenge: moving past simple user needs to uncover what truly drives behavior. The Jobs-to-be-Done (JTBD) framework is the key to making that leap. This excellent text by my friend Itamar Medeiros, "Using Jobs To Be Done to Elevate your Design and Research Practice," breaks down exactly how JTBD can help you: - Gain sharper insights by focusing on user outcomes, not just demographics. - Improve collaboration by framing research in a way that aligns design, product, and engineering teams. - Win buy-in by connecting your design choices directly to business value and a more focused roadmap. If you want to elevate your influence and build more impactful products, this is a must-read. https://lnkd.in/dXGgv8sb #JobsToBeDone #JTBD #UX #CX #Design #UserResearch #ProductStrategy #ProductDesign #DesignThinking #GrowingDesignCulture #AmplifyingDesign #BusinessTransformationByDesign

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Figma is skipping the traditional IPO roadshow and going public via direct listing. And it's 40x oversubscribed. Most companies avoid direct listings. In a traditional IPO, investment banks buy shares at a discount and then sell them to institutional investors. The banks act as underwriters, which means they guarantee a minimum price and provide stability. Direct listings are different. No underwriters. No discount. No roadshow presentations to convince investors. Existing shares just start trading on the exchange at whatever price the market decides. This creates volatility risk as there's no price floor. But Figma doesn't need to worry about that. There's massive demand already baked in. When Spotify went direct in 2018, everyone predicted chaos. Instead, it traded relatively smoothly. Same with Slack in 2019. But why does this really matter for Figma? They capture the full market value instead of giving banks a discount. In traditional IPOs, banks often price shares 10-20% below market value to ensure a successful launch. That's money left on the table. Why give away value when you don't have to?

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Why I don’t ask people to think aloud in evaluative research 💭 The ‘think aloud’ method has been a staple of usability testing for decades. But in my experience, the way a lot of researchers use it can introduce some issues: 🚫 Some participants take it too literally, narrating every tiny action. This isn’t how they’d behave at home. 🚫 It makes an already unnatural setting feel even less realistic. 🚫 Once someone starts overanalysing, it’s very hard to bring them back. Instead: ✅ Most participants will talk naturally if you just observe them. ✅ If they’re quiet, you can nudge with simple prompts like “what are you thinking?” I’ve found this leads to more authentic behaviour and better insights than briefing people to ‘think aloud’ from the start. 📨 I cover this in more detail in this week's Desk Notes, my free newsletter. Link in the comments.

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This is very interesting and shows vision. The fragmented landscape of tools for US citizens and international users are not nearly good enough. Fundamentals like a unified and polished design system with UX telemetry (anonymized) and with basics like IAM and federated log in might make the biggest short term impact. My hope is that it is focused on everyday beautiful essentials and is fully non-partisan. Democracy and access are the greatest opportunities here.. Ben Sheppard shared this in another thread and gave a UK perspective (thanks). https://lnkd.in/eDrMWdWe. @bensh

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