Making design matter in technology organizations
Thoughtworks Technology Podcast
Thoughtworks
4.7 • 53 Ratings
🗓️ 27 July 2023
⏱️ 45 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Design leader and Thoughtworks alumnus Emma Carter recently published her second book, DesignedUp. In it, she explains how designers can win a seat at the leadership table inside technolology organizations and become effective evangelists and advocates for good design principles and practices.
In this episode of the Technology Podcast, Emma joins hosts Rebecca Parsons and Scott Shaw to discuss her new book and talks through some of the challenges designers face in even the most forward-thinking technology companies. She highlights that design is, today, far more than just UI design — it can, and should, touch many parts of an organization, ensuring that products and services are properly aligned with the aims, goals and needs of users.
You can find Emma's book on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/DesignedUp-Emma-Carter/dp/1032202017/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, everyone. My name is Rebecca Parsons, and I'm one of the co-hosts for the ThoughtWorks Technology podcast. And I'm here with Scott. |
| 0:19.0 | Hi, I'm Scott Shaw. I'm also one of the hosts of the podcast and I'll be doing color commentary today. |
| 0:25.6 | And we're here to talk to Emma Carter, who has just published a book called Designed Up. |
| 0:33.6 | Emma, would you please tell us a little about yourself? |
| 0:36.6 | Hi, yes, I'm Emma Carter. |
| 0:39.3 | So I'm based in Brisbane and Australia, so I moved to the sunny side from the UK. |
| 0:45.3 | I'm a principal experience designer with over 20 years of experience. |
| 0:49.3 | I ran my own award-winning design agency in the UK before I moved to Australia, joined Thought |
| 0:56.1 | Works. I was there for eight years. I've authored. This would be my second book that I've authored |
| 1:01.6 | now. Yeah, so that's me. Okay, so let's start with the basics. What was it that prompted you to |
| 1:09.6 | write this particular book? |
| 1:12.2 | So there's a few different things that came about from it. So I noticed that lots and lots |
| 1:17.0 | of designers were really struggling to get their voice heard. So some of the designers that I've |
| 1:22.5 | mentored over the years found it hard being the minority within inside a tech team, they would have product owners saying, |
| 1:31.1 | well, we want to do it this way and the designer was saying, well, actually, the customer doesn't |
| 1:35.1 | want that. It doesn't work for them, but no one's listening to me. So I was having to mentor |
| 1:39.9 | a lot of people through that process of how to get their voice heard and how to bring that data into their conversation. |
| 1:45.6 | So it wasn't them being the designer, being picky about the thing that they were trying to communicate, |
| 1:51.9 | but it was actually driven from customer research and from the data. |
| 1:56.4 | And then also people that I've interviewed over the years as well who want to become designers who work more in the tech side of things in UX designs. |
| 2:04.6 | And they come from more of a pure design background and then they struggled with |
| 2:10.6 | understanding, well, how do their skills fit inside a digital delivery team? |
... |
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