Janaki Kumar

“In research and design, language matters – because what you ask for shapes what you get. Understanding the difference between observations, themes, and insights is essential – not just as a semantic exercise, but as a way to do more meaningful work.” My Symplicit colleague Kate Schie breaks down observations, themes, and insights in her article, walking through how they build on each other and how we can articulate them to frame action on the back of research.

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If your personas describe users in isolation, you’re limiting impact. Real work is collaborative, constrained, and increasingly shaped by automated systems. Our design artifacts need to reflect that reality. This piece explores what it means to expand personas beyond the single user, and why relationships between actors matter just as much as the actors themselves. https://lnkd.in/g4dxrrHx #designexcellence #designleadership #userpersona #AIintegration

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Forrester reports that companies investing in design-driven innovation see a 228% ROI. As someone who advocates for design to have a seat at the table, I love this stat! But companies evolve… and so should design. It’s no longer *just* about securing a seat; it’s about questioning if you want a seat at *that* table. Maybe it’s about building a new one. One that welcomes the voices too often left out. ❤️

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This is what investing in AI in design looks like. As with many other job families, the design industry focuses on what might the impact of AI be: will it lower the quality with slop? Will it replace humans? Etc But I don't see much focus on to understand and really capitalise on the potential AI brings to design. We are largely treating it as any other tool: a way to get incrementally better. At best it's a short course for the designers, at worst it's expecting designers to already know how to use it. But AI has the potential for making radical shifts and leaps. I'd love to hear, and learn, from anyone who is making significant strides to drive AI transformation in design.

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Observations tell us what happened, but insights reveal why it matters. In this article, my colleague Kate Schie shares her thoughts on crucial differences between observations, themes, and insights, and why only one truly fuels meaningful change.

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There's a real predicament design leaders are facing right now. Virtually every one of them is being asked to come up with a strategy for their team, model new behaviors, and have a plan for AI, but they're just as new to this as everyone else. Worse, most don't have the time or space to play, experiment, or actually dig in. That's an incredibly hard place to lead from. Leaders are expected to have good judgment, make good decisions, and provide good guidance, but you only get good at those things through hands-on experience. Without it, you're just guessing. IME, no one likes being in a position where they have to make a call and cosplay confidence, all while knowing they're just guessing. There's a lot of information out there around coding or designing with AI, but not so much when it comes to strategic work, leading people, and positioning a team to win. That's why I created Claude Cowork for Design Leaders. I ran the first session on Tuesday with no real idea how it would go. I assumed folks would create a skill, and they did. I also assumed the attendees would mostly be Senior ICs. Instead, 15 Directors, Senior Directors, and Heads of Design showed up. For pre-work, I asked attendees to write down the AI agent they wanted to make. When I opened the session, I asked everyone to answer one question about their goal without using AI. "If this agent does what you want it to, what does good look like versus bad? Write down the observable signals or measurable heuristics you will use to tell the difference." And y'all, they struggled. The question seems straightforward, but it's deceptively hard. People with twenty years of experience who talk about strategy, vision, and plans every day struggled to know what makes them good or bad. That was humbling for them, but sometimes that's the best part of learning. In reality, they had the answers. They'd just never been given the time and space to articulate them. We spent the morning learning how to do that. Then in the afternoon, they created, tested, and refined agents that did a pretty good job of doing what they wanted them to. When you facilitate a workshop, you kinda know if it went well or not. But, the only want to know is by hearing from participants. I got this email Wednesday morning: "Ryan, thank you for our session yesterday. I've been feeling paralysed by the pressure to leverage AI for my workflow as a leader, but your session was a total breakthrough. It's unlocked so many ideas and honestly relieved a huge amount of anxiety I was carrying. I am so grateful I've found this!" So, I'm running the workshop again on April 21. Early-bird tickets are on sale through March 27th. I'll see you there. https://lnkd.in/egBkjSyU

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This article argues that design has shifted from an intuition-driven, artistic practice to one dominated by frameworks and data, which may prioritize efficiency over creativity and originality. https://lnkd.in/g3Sz2tBN

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People expect design leaders to be creative directors. The reality? We need deep expertise in organizational transformation, shifting business models without disrupting delivery, and AI implementation, with the list of needs continuing to grow. These aren't occasional challenges. They're daily, simultaneous demands that require empirical and tacit knowledge. The skill set has fundamentally changed, and design education hasn't kept pace. The bootcamp boom? Never helped to improve. The gap between doing design and leading design is massive. Being excellent and efficient at craft doesn't automatically translate to strategic influence. We need frameworks for translating user insights into business decisions that actually stick. The real work happens in the messy middle, where compliance meets innovation, research challenges organizational assumptions, and technical constraints collide with vision. That's where design leadership actually lives, and it's rarely what the majority of Design Leaders we're trained for. After two decades of building design authority in growing orgs, I've learned more from navigating these tensions than from any formal training. But we shouldn't have to figure this out alone. Worth the read if you're thinking about what design leadership really requires today and how you can acquire this type of knowledge. #DesignLeadership #UXStrategy #DesignThinking https://lnkd.in/gss3ueCz

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A lot of conversations I have with design teams start the same way: “We’re moving fast… but we keep circling back.” It’s rarely a skill issue. It’s a timing issue. Most misalignment doesn’t come from bad design. It comes from discovering truth too late—after engineering starts, after a sprint closes, or after launch. And the cost of that delay is enormous. A late fix can be 100× more expensive than catching the issue early. But the teams that validate upfront—concepts, prototypes, even simple assumptions—consistently move faster, not slower. I’ve seen: • 25% fewer iteration cycles • Clearer rationale behind decisions • Less friction between design, product, and engineering Early insight isn’t a tax on velocity. It’s the engine of velocity. When we test earlier, we spend less time reworking and more time progressing. And our teams feel it—not just in timelines, but in confidence and morale. These themes are showing up across the teams featured in our newest Leadership Signal. It’s a great pulse check on how leaders are tightening alignment earlier in the process. https://bit.ly/4ixuGp2

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Last month, I had a conversation with the World Design Organization on navigating the deep entanglements of systems—and how this perspective shapes the way we design solutions, startups, and impact. We unpacked the constant dance between the macro & micro, drawing from real stories at Studio Carbon, Daily Dump, IDEO and Quicksand—where we put systems thinking into grounded real-world innovations. If you're reimagining how we innovate for the world’s real needs—without treating unintended consequences as an afterthought—this one's for you. #SystemsThinking #DesignForImpact #SocialInnovation #ComplexityInDesign #IntentionalInnovation #WIP

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Leadership isn’t about control, it’s about care. In a great essay for MassArt Design Innovation, Peilan Liang writes: “We need your presence, not just your plans.” Her piece is a gentle call for a new model of design leadership, one grounded in listening, co-creation, and trust. For anyone starting out and navigating complex, fast-moving teams, this one’s worth reading. https://lnkd.in/eKMMHnPh #DesignLeadership #MassArtMDES #PsychologicalSafety #LeadWithCare #HumanFirstLeadershi

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I frequently reread this great primer on Ontology from Jessica Talisman. Librarians and Info Architects bring critical expertise to any team working with AI. Design choices shape context and communication between people, and this will be exponentially true with AI agents. #design #enterpriseAI #AIstrategy #AIagents #knowledgemanagement

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