Deciding to hire your first start-up designer is not easy, but it’s only the first step in the hiring process. With product design going far beyond “making things pretty” and even “making things usable”, how do you find the right person with the right skill set to help your business…

Have you ever felt the struggle to squeeze in some creative or strategic work time in your busy schedule? How did it work out? I had a long-time assumption that creativity and stress are not compatible. Whenever I block two hours in the middle of a busy day for “creative…

It’s nearly impossible to find practical examples of what good product discovery is. So one way to learn and improve is to look at other industries and leaders. Even made-up ones — House MD offers a surprisingly useful guide. But first, what is product discovery? Any sustainable product design strategy comes down to this: achieving business…

Or why you should stop dot voting on product ideas. How do teams make decisions? We’re all familiar with democratic and autocratic models. Imagine a boss constantly telling people what to do, or a team voting on the next big thing. Because of autocracy’s deserved bad reputation and lack of…

It took me two burnouts and one pandemic to seek help. During my first burnout, I was convinced it was not a thing and it will pass the moment I switch jobs. My example is not an exception — our overall mental health is measurably poor. — Here’s just one data point: World Health Organisation estimates depression levels at 5% of the adult population. So how come we as a society are obsessed with fitness and never “miss leg day” but barely can take care of any aspects of our emotional lives?

Navigating various design roles is tough, especially for people outside of the design industry and IT. Here’s how mapping the roles against steps of the design process makes it easier. — The process The product design process consists of 4 steps: find a problem to solve, explore potential solutions, define how a particular solution should behave, look and feel. Where does each design role sit? UX researcher, interaction designer, and UI designer

Things to avoid for a successful brainstorm — The principle is old and simple — by bringing more people into ideation, you get more perspectives and a higher chance of solving your problem in a better way. And you’ll improve the team’s motivation along the way: when people contribute to idea generation, they are way happier contributing to…

Your startup decided to hire a product designer, the kind that not only “crafts beautiful interfaces” but also finds user problems and business opportunities and validates design solutions. On paper, everybody does precisely that, so how do you evaluate the broad product design skillset? …