Overview
Design Beyond Digital
John Gleason draws from his experience at P&G to illustrate how design influences physical consumer goods as effectively as digital products. He encourages digital design leaders to cross-pollinate with industrial, packaging, or service design to gain fresh insight and broader impact.
Why Design Feels Like It's Losing Influence
The episode tackles the question, “Is design dead?” Gleason clarifies it’s metaphorical—a reflection of how design has lost stature in many organizations. Contributing factors include:
- Sinking into tactical delivery over strategic contribution.
- Ceding early briefing, scope, and strategy to other disciplines.
- Focusing too narrowly on visual polish rather than business or structural value.
1. Reclaiming Control and Advocacy
Designers must assert control over early strategy, not just execution. This means:
- Framing the problem and defining success metrics.
- Participating in scoping and requirement setting, not just delivery.
- Gleason’s core message: "Whomever controls the prompt controls the product." Designers must lead conversations—especially in an AI-augmented world.
2. What Design Leaders Should Champion
To stay relevant, design leaders must:
- Push for strategic alignment with partners at the briefing stage.
- Formalize a design mandate—clearly define areas of influence and embed them into org processes.
- Leverage AI as a tool for insight generation, pattern synthesis, and decision framing—not just output generation.
3. Breaking the Downward Spiral
To counteract the erosion of influence, leaders should:
- Shift perception from “design equals UI” to “design as holistic problem-solving.”
- Build organizational muscle by:
- Leading problem definition workshops,
- Participating in roadmap scoping,
- Quantifying design value with metrics tied to business outcomes.
- Ensure design participates in AI tooling and direction, not just consumption.
4. Key Takeaway
“Design isn’t dead—it’s just seen better days.”
Gleason offers a call to action: design leaders must broaden their mandate, reclaim strategic control, and operationalize influence, especially in a world increasingly shaped by AI.