Paul Dellow

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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Great design isn’t about doing more. It’s about doing what matters most. When you prioritise right: Products improve faster. Users feel the difference. When you don’t: Time is wasted. Teams feel stuck. And here’s the perfect example. Most people think design progress comes from: Adding more features. Endless visual tweaks. Chasing “cool” ideas. But the truth is… None of that matters if: Usability blockers remain. Core flows stay broken. Business goals aren’t met. Here’s what prioritisation looks like when it works vs when it doesn’t: Clear priorities: - You fix what blocks users. - You design with impact. - Progress compounds daily. Scattered priorities: - You polish the wrong things. - You burn energy on low value. - Nothing meaningful ships. What changed? Not the number of hours. Not the size of the team. Not the tool you used. This is: Design prioritisation that works. Great founders ask: Am I investing in tasks that move the needle? Am I aligning design with business impact? Am I cutting noise instead of adding it? Because clarity in design isn’t about doing everything. It’s about choosing the right things. No wasted effort. No endless tweaks. No “busy work.” So ultimately:  If you want great design, prioritisation is the real superpower. ♻ Repost if you agree.

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“Everything is design and design is everything.” - Emily Campbell Today, Kim Lenox, Emily and I had a conversation with a thousand people to discuss Figma’s new study exploring how work is changing for 7 roles involved in product development. The quote above sums it up. Roles are blurring. And, more people than ever see design as an integral part of their work. The full story is longer and even more interesting: - 64% of respondents identified with two or more roles, and over a third said their responsibilities span three or more roles. - 56% of non-designers say design tasks like prototyping are a major part of their work, up 12 percentage points in a year - 19% of time is now spent with AI tools, expecting to increase to 27% in the next 12 months. This time is taken from solo work time rather than work with colleagues. And, 57% say they’re spending more time on work that’s higher value and strategic. - 53% say deep knowledge is still needed to do a task well, less than a quarter believe AI reduces the need for expertise. Matt Walker and team built the study of 1200 respondents and 50 interviews, covering 67 tasks. Alia Fite, Emma Webster, and Alex Praeger created an amazing report from the findings. Chad Bergman and Greg Huntoon answered so many questions in today's discussion. The key here is it’s not just design. It’s not just product development. And, I would guess this trend is actually is bigger than just this field. I think at the heart of these changes are a strong desire to communicate intent from one expertise to another. From marketing to design. From design to development. From PM to development. And, I think we’ll see even more of this blurring moving forward.

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I’ve shifted from leading service design on products and services to applying the same mindset across whole organisations and operating models. At an organisation-wide level it can feel daunting, but it’s the same customer-centred practice, zoomed out. I start with delivery. With how value flows to customers. And build from there. The model you end up with won’t just look tidy. It will work. I’ve written about the three types of operating model that show up again and again when you take this approach: groups, tracks and stages. https://lnkd.in/e3QawR2B

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UX costs nothing—until it costs everything. Every ignored friction point eventually resurfaces as support tickets, dropped leads, stalled onboarding, or lost renewals. We've seen this consistently across B2B platforms, member portals, and internal tools: → Poor navigation floods help desks → Inconsistent UI slows adoption and erodes trust → Bloated workflows quietly push users toward competitors Organizations often think they're avoiding UX costs, unaware they're already paying—through wasted time, constant patches, and staff burnout. High-performing teams don't see UX as a line-item luxury. They treat it as preventive ops. They measure it. Fund it. Protect it. Because solving root problems always costs less than endlessly triaging symptoms. If your support team is swamped or onboarding is stalled, it's probably not just a content issue. It's a UX issue—and you're already footing the bill.

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Whether you’re trying to get hired or promoted, we’ve developed an obsession with “showing impact.” I’m guilty of it too. Many talented designers struggle with this. They work in organisations where tracking is incomplete, and they’re forced to choose between showing nothing or making up numbers. But here’s something to keep in mind: Awareness beats access. I’d rather work with someone who doesn’t have data but understands what their work affects. Than someone who has all the data and no idea what to do with it. If you don’t have perfect data, you can still show impact by thinking through these layers: 1. Behaviour --- What are the smallest user actions your design is meant to influence? For example: • Form submissions • Button clicks • Page visits These are leading indicators. You can directly influence them with design. 2. Product --- If hundreds or thousands of users perform that behaviour more often, what product metric would it influence? For example: • Activation rate • Engagement • Discoverability These are team-level outcomes. Your work should support one or more of them. 3. Business --- If that product metric improves, what business impact would it have? For example: • New MRR • Retention • Expansion These are your lagging indicators. They show up later, but they matter most to leadership. Even if you can’t measure these directly, talk about what you believe your work affected. Be honest about the gaps. You can also share what you would have tracked if the data had been available. If you can tell a plausible story using these three layers—behaviour, product, and business—you’re already showing strong strategic awareness. And you’re pointing to the organisational gaps that made measurement difficult. That mindset matters more than a dashboard.

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The most successful design teams use *less* AI, but it's not because they're against it. Mature design teams have laid the ground work and built the systems that essentially make AI unnecessary. For these teams, fixing AI mistakes takes more time than leveraging their time-tested strategies and frameworks. But how do we know this? Earlier this year, zeroheight surveyed 294 UX professionals for their 2025 Design Systems Report. After reviewing it, 2 signals quickly jumped out to me: → 84% of mature teams have adopted tokens → Only 10% of teams use AI for docs or ideation IOW: The stronger the system, the less reliance on prompts. Here's how team maturity breaks down: → Immature teams struggle with consistency and use AI to fill gaps. → Developing teams have some structure, some experiments... and some mixed results. → Mature teams, with their high token adoption and strong systems, use AI sparingly. There's a very clear curve—as system maturity goes up, AI reliance goes down. Here's the truth: Not all productivity gains are equal. → Design systems bring a ~38% efficiency boost (via Figma). → AI tools are associated with ~9% productivity swings (via Netguru | B Corp™ + Boldare). Mature teams don’t avoid AI because they’re scared of it. They just finish projects faster, and with fewer errors, by not using it. ✔ Systems enforce quality + consistency ✔ Components scale predictably ✔ Tokens compound over time; AI outputs don’t It's faster working within the frameworks you've built than fixing the mistakes AI invariably makes. If your team leans too hard on prompts, here's something to try this week: 1️⃣ Spot one thing you keep regenerating with AI. 2️⃣ Convert it into a token or component. 3️⃣ Add it to your system and share it. 📣 This week, I’m unpacking hard truths about UX design—realities that newcomers and seasoned pros alike need to know. Tomorrow’s topic is the accessibility crisis and answering why do 94.8% of websites still fail basic checks? Don’t miss it ✌🏼😎 👉 Your turn: Does your team lean more on systems or prompts right now? Share your take in the comments—I’ll be watching (& responding)... #uxdesign #designsystems #ai #productdesign ⸻ 👋🏼 Hi, I’m Dane—your source for UX and career tips. ❤️ Was this helpful? A 👍🏼 would be thuper awethome. 🔄 Share to help others (or for easy access later). ➕ Follow for more like this in your feed, every day.

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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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Might be a bit of a controversial one but worth sharing because a few people asked off the back of a recent post. Most designers obsess over their portfolio. They: - slave over it - redo it - polish it. - chuck it out and start again And don’t get me wrong, a folio is important. But it often doesn’t hold as much weight as people think. It’s a stepping stone to an interview. It won’t ever really get you the job on its own. Meanwhile, the CV, which can be just as, if not more important, often doesn’t get nearly the same care and attention. For context, in the last four roles I’ve hired for: Content + Marketing roles → 100% - CV, no folio Service Design → ~90% - CV, folio was more of a sense check Product Design → ~60/40 split - leaning more towards folio Even in the Product Design case, that CV was really important. It’s the thing that gets you through the first filter, frames your story and gives weight to the work that follows in the folio. So my advice: a) don’t kill yourself over the portfolio. b) put a decent level of care / thought into your CV. (FYI - please leave off those silly slider things … they’re not helping anyone 😬) #Design

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So many good products get ruined by one thing... Rushed UI Before you hit publish, Run through this quick UI checklist I’ve used on 60+ projects: ✅ 𝗧𝘆𝗽𝗼𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗽𝗵𝘆 𝗵𝗶𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵𝘆 is consistent (H1, H2, body) ✅ 𝗖𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗿 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘀𝘁 passes accessibility check ✅ 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝗺𝗮𝗿𝘆 𝗖𝗧𝗔 is visible in under 3 seconds ✅ 𝗣𝗮𝗱𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴/𝗴𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗻 is consistent across all breakpoints ✅ 𝗡𝗮𝘃𝗶𝗴𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 works seamlessly on mobile/tablet ✅ 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀 are covered (hover, active, error, success) ✅ 𝗜𝗺𝗮𝗴𝗲𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗶𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘀 are optimized (no slow load) ✅ 𝟰𝟬𝟰 + empty states aren't forgotten ✅ 𝗙𝗼𝗻𝘁𝘀 are system-optimized or properly licensed ✅ No 𝗹𝗼𝗿𝗲𝗺 𝗶𝗽𝘀𝘂𝗺 left on live screens (happens more than you think) ---------- Building something and want a second set of eyes? Shoot me a message - happy to help.

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