Shaping design, designers and teams
Summary
Jason will share the latest of his work over the past decade developing visual frameworks for design teams, leaders and designers to map their skills and define their future professional development. Through his role as a team leader, and with workshops he runs with the community and his clients, he has seen how valuable it is for designers to self-reflect on who they are, and project the areas in which they feel like they should develop. Whether that’s within, or beyond the context of the organization in which they work.
Key Insights
-
•
Traditional spreadsheet methods for profiling UX skills are often cumbersome and quickly become outdated.
-
•
Visual tools like career timelines and blog mapping promote faster, more engaging self-reflection among designers.
-
•
Creating personal skill 'shapes' with physical objects such as skittles reduces self-consciousness and encourages honest assessment.
-
•
Soft skills like empathy for stakeholders, developers, and colleagues are more critical for UX success than purely technical skills.
-
•
Design leadership responsibilities overlap with domains like design ops and individual designer roles—not just confined to leaders.
-
•
A UX spectrum tool can clarify distinctions across product strategy, UI, service design, and customer experience roles.
-
•
Mapping individual skills and growth desires allows organizations to identify role gaps and better target hiring and mentoring efforts.
-
•
Most designers rarely take time for structured self-reflection without engaging tools or frameworks.
-
•
Simple peer-to-peer development methods such as mentoring, shadowing, and reviews are often preferred over formal training.
-
•
Facilitating skill-mapping exercises needs sensitivity as the process can reveal personal vulnerabilities among participants.
Notable Quotes
"Just assume we haven’t read it and keep it quick."
"Spreadsheets for profiles across an organization become really difficult to update."
"The important thing was the conversation around it. Do it quickly, explain your thinking, have a discussion."
"I’m not happy with reducing visual design down to one segment because of my previous work with those types of people."
"Soft interpersonal human relationship skills matter more than technical practice domains."
"Design leadership responsibilities aren’t just for leaders; many overlap with design ops and individual designers."
"People rarely spend time to self reflect, but visual tools help engage them."
"Hundreds of things designers are expected to do can be paralyzing; focus is critical."
"Development is often best supported through pragmatic peer activities—not just training or conferences."
"We’re human, sensitive, passionate, but fragile; we must be careful how we facilitate this kind of work."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"Design research often acts like scientists with clipboards rather than humans in conversation."
Daniel GloydDesigning From the Inside Out: How Method Acting Can Inspire Design Research
February 12, 2026
"Eggs are the binder — humility and trauma-informed practices that keep relationships and research together."
Deirdre Hirschtritt Cesar Paredes Marie PerrotResearch is Only as Good as the Relationships You Build
November 17, 2022
"Understaffing is consistent in design ops no matter where in the world you are."
Benjamin RealMaturity Models: A Core Tool for Creating a DesignOps Strategy
October 1, 2021
"Not all climate jobs have digital outputs, so don’t waste your time chasing digital roles in fields like green concrete."
Max Gadney Andrea Petrucci Joshua Stehr Hannah WickesAssessing UX jobs for impact in climate
August 14, 2024
"What is it like to be a new kid on an old block?"
Lada GorlenkoTheme 1: Intro
January 8, 2024
"It’s not about play at work being silly; it’s about weaving it in seamlessly so it just feels right."
Feyikemi AkinwolemiwaPlay to innovate: How curiosity and experimentation transform UX
March 11, 2026
"Please be sure to make sure you change your conference itinerary to your local time zone."
Bria AlexanderOpening Remarks
March 29, 2023
"DeepFakes can look too realistic and might introduce new privacy risks if donor faces come from real people."
Llewyn Paine[Demo] Deploying AI doppelgangers to de-identify user research recordings
June 5, 2024
"Junior engineers often resent having to create OKRs that feel disconnected from their day-to-day work."
Bria Alexander Benson Low Natalya Pemberton Stephanie GoldthorpeOKRs—Helpful or Harmful?
January 20, 2022
