Rosenverse
Why Community is Key to Professionalizing Design

Log in or create a free Rosenverse account to watch this video.

Log in Create free account

100s of community videos are available to free members. Conference talks are generally available to Gold members.

Why Community is Key to Professionalizing Design

Friday, October 28, 2022 • Civic Design Community
Share the love for this talk
Why Community is Key to Professionalizing Design
Speakers: Jaskiran Kang
Link:

Summary

Over the last 5 years, design as a profession has become more established in the public sector. What does it mean to professionalize design? And how does community play a part? Jaskiran Kang, Head of Service Design at TPXImpact shares her experience moving into government from the private sector, leading design at the Department for Education, and building community to further design practice.

Key Insights

  • Jas’s motivation for joining government design stemmed from a desire to make a positive social impact, especially in education and nutrition.

  • Loneliness and lack of community are common challenges for early government designers, which can be mitigated through active networking and forming connections.

  • Building trust and consistency in hiring processes, such as formalizing job descriptions and interviews, significantly professionalizes design recruitment.

  • Strong leadership support with protected time is critical to sustain design communities and professional growth in the public sector.

  • Design imperatives framed in business language (like capability growth and standards) help align with broader organizational strategies.

  • Professionalizing design focuses not only on skills but also on recognizing individual journeys, providing autonomy, and enabling diverse career paths.

  • Government design professions benefit from openness, sharing resources like job descriptions on GitHub to foster community collaboration.

  • Creating stability for an immature design profession amid frequent policy and leadership changes requires a robust, but adaptable, strategy.

  • Effective design leadership includes cross-department networking beyond design teams to secure budgets and influence policy.

  • Embedding service designers earlier alongside policymakers could transform public services by integrating user-centered perspectives from the start.

Notable Quotes

"I wasn’t really good at memory tests, but art and design was where I really felt myself."

"One of my friends told me I was considerably underpaid and I’d never asked for anything, which changed my awareness of self-respect."

"Lou Down made a call for good designers to come and join government, and that was my eye-opening moment."

"Sometimes you feel really alone in government design because the services are siloed and fragmented."

"We had to formalize job descriptions and interview questions so we’d attract the right designers and create consistency."

"Leadership believing it’s about people and skills, opening up and unlocking talent—that was really beautiful."

"If the department is dead serious about delivering services, these design imperatives are absolutely imperative."

"Retention is so important as a leader; you have to make sure people are growing even if they don’t ask for it."

"I connected with commercial, contracts, and policy teams to understand how the system worked and to secure budgets."

"Wouldn’t it be awesome if service designers sat alongside policymakers at the earliest stage of decision-making?"

Ask the Rosenbot
Gillian Salerno-Rebic
From Insight to Impact: How JourneySpark Used WEVO Pulse + Pro to Drive a 50% Lift in Ad Engagement
2025 • Designing with AI 2025
Gold
Jake Burghardt
Stop wasting research: Unlock more value from research insights
2025 • Rosenfeld Community
Bria Alexander
Day 3 Welcome
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024
Gold
Jane Reid
Self-care in User Research
2020 • Advancing Research Community
Cheryl Platz
Collaborative Creativity through Improv
2018 • DesignOps Summit 2018
Gold
Nicole Bergstrom
AccessibilityOps: Moving beyond “nice to have”
2024 • DesignOps Community
Sheryl Cababa
Thinking in systems to address climate with Sheryl Cababa
2024 • Climate UX Interest Group
Dan Hill
Strategic design, slowdown, and the infrastructures of everyday life
2022 • Enterprise Community
Louis Rosenfeld
Day 1 Welcome
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024
Gold
Kristin Taylor
Building Bridges Across Organizational Silos
2022 • Civic Design 2022
Gold
Heidi Trost
To Protect People, You Have to Protect Information: A Human-Centered Design Approach to Cybersecurity
2025 • Rosenfeld Community
Bria Alexander
Opening Remarks
2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold
Dr. Karl Jeffries
The Science of Creativity for DesignOps
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2020
Gold
Noah Bond
Redefining truth and inclusivity: Navigating data ownership and ethical research in the age of disinformation
2025 • Advancing Research 2025
Gold
Sam Proulx
Accessibility: An Opportunity to Innovate
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold
Alicia D. Johnson
Disasters and the 21st Century
2021 • Civic Design 2021
Gold

More Videos

Alexia Cohen

"We actively reduced jargon to make our process accessible for non-designers."

Alexia Cohen Adriane Ackerman

Increasing Health Equity and Improving the Service Experience for Under-Served Latine Communities in Arizona

December 4, 2024

Marc Majers

"Interruptions get participants more immersed and lead to higher quality discoveries."

Marc Majers Tony Turner

Interrupted UX - Add A Dose of Reality To Usability Testing

March 11, 2022

Jorge Arango

"Co-creation brings other stakeholders into the design process, not just for requirements but to actually do the design work."

Jorge Arango

Design as an Antidote to VUCA

May 9, 2019

Brenna Fallon

"Growth and learning is your long term change management plan—does it take letting go of a clear outcome? Yes, but it’s worth the leap."

Brenna Fallon

Learning Over Outcomes

October 24, 2019

Daniel Gloyd

"We as humans value warmth information in others more than competence information."

Daniel Gloyd

Warming the User Experience: Lessons from America's first and most radical human-centered designers

May 9, 2024

Sam Proulx

"Involving people with disabilities from the start reveals impact and usability issues that automated testing simply cannot catch."

Sam Proulx

Online Shopping: Designing an Accessible Experience

October 3, 2023

Kristin Skinner

"Teachers need actionable insights, not just raw data."

Kristin Skinner

Five Years of DesignOps

September 29, 2021

Denise Jacobs

"We’re not going for perfection. We’re going for excellence and change."

Denise Jacobs Nancy Douyon Renee Reid Lisa Welchman

Interactive Keynote: Social Change by Design

January 8, 2024

Roberta Dombrowski

"Fraud detection automatically refunds you if a participant is found to be fraudulent and helps find a replacement."

Roberta Dombrowski Lianna Aduana

5 Reasons to Bring your Recruiting in House

September 30, 2021