FBTB 2022: Andy Budd – Design’s Mid-Life Crisis

Andy Budd
Founder of Clearleft and Design Leadership advocate

Andy Budd is the founder of one of UKs most famous design agencies, bestselling author, and Designer by heart. He might not have invented the phrase ‘Design Leadership’, but he sure is one of the individuals that marked it on the map for the rest of us. Andy is on a mission to teach the world how to build a world-class design team, with both tools and know-hows.

This is his speaker session from the From Business to Buttons conference 2022. "Design’s Mid-Life Crisis"

“On most objective measures, the design industry is thriving. Our skills are in high demand, our salaries are rising, and companies can’t fill roles fast enough. Design leadership has come of age, we’re seeing companies invest in team development, and more and more designers are earning that hallowed “seat at the table”. So why, when I talk to designers, do so many of them feel burnt out and despondent; like all their hard work and effort has been for nothing. It’s as though the design industry is going through some sort of mid-life crisis.

In this session design leader, start-up advisor, speaker and coach, Andy Budd, takes us through some of the reasons why we’re experiencing this sense of collective Ennui, and what we can do about it. This talk may make for awkward listening at times. However unless we can have an open and honest conversation about the behaviours that are holding us back, we’ll never unlock the full potential of what design has to offer.”

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18:50 I call this the Tetris mindset. Your successes vanish, and the only things left over are the failures. Just like the blocks left on the screen in a game of Tetris.

However, it was an idea I gave name to after experiences with clients, not with designers. Clients can be pretty brutal man.

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16:20 the incorporation of UX design into agile development sprints puts design at odds with itself. How? Why? Design is about learning, and you can't learn much in 2 weeks. You can't research, design, test, redesign, test again, and polish off for development in the span of 2 weeks.

The design process is about learning, agile is about delivering value. You cannot deliver value without learning. Shoe horning UX into agile forces designers to deliver value without learning.

Consider for a moment just how common it is for user testing to be eliminated from the design process. Imagine now, if QA testing was removed from the development process.