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as a designer you might have heard a lot
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about the importance of impact and if
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you hear that word and you think oh my
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gosh what impact my project doesn't have
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any impact or how do i communicate
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impact when i don't have any work that
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has shipped or maybe i only have school
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projects well don't worry in this video
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today i'm going to give you some
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pointers on what impact is and some
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alternative different kinds of impact
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you can talk about in your project if
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you don't have any business impact or
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your projects haven't shipped so we're
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going to start by talking about what
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impact is why it is important what to do
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if you don't have business impact and
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then at the end i'm also going to run
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you through my own presentation where i
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talk about impact i've had from a design
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perspective so not necessarily business
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impact but other ways i've contributed
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to impact as a designer
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all right so what is impact well impact
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is the most commonly talked about in the
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context of business impact and this
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often refers to how did your project
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contribute towards any increase or lift
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in business metrics you might be asked
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in an interview or expected to talk
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about in a case study how your project
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led to or resulted in business impact so
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this could be in context to any business
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metrics you may also be expected to
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reflect on the goals that you set at the
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beginning of a project and what kind of
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impact your project had in the context
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of those goals did you meet them did you
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overachieve them under achieve them what
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was the impact of the project i really
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like this quote from precious matabuki
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who wrote in a medium article for us
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designers to stay relevant and still
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have a seat at the table we must be
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aware of how we impact business and i
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think that sums it up really well
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because if you can't draw the
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correlation between
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your efforts and design to how it is
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impacting the business at the bottom
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line or at the end of the day then
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ultimately how can we expect people to
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value design for what it is it is always
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worth having some awareness over the
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business impact of your project and if
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you are working at a company or in a
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team if you have some work that has
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shipped and you aren't aware of what the
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business impact is
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go and talk to your product manager or
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go and talk to your data scientist they
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are bound to have some of this business
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impact already in their back pocket and
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so it could just be a conversation to be
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had i've mentioned a few times on this
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channel as well about how i always make
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sure to include business impact whenever
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i'm talking about my work so that could
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be in the context of a portfolio
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presentation it could be in a interview
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a design job interview it could be at
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the end of a case study so always be
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prepared to talk about it the actual
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metric that communicates the business
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impact of your project is going to
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differ depending on the company you're
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at or the goal of the project some
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examples of business impact might be
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things like
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increase in sales or conversion rate or
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orders or it could also be things like
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decrease in
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drop off or a decrease in abandoned cart
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or decrease in
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account cancellations again make sure
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you know what the goal of the project
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was and if you don't know what that is
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talk to your team and establish a goal
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up front and talk about how you're going
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to measure success so why is this
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important well not only will you
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probably be expected to know this and
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talk about this in interviews and case
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studies and things like that but impact
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also shows the value of design it can
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also hint to people your design skills
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and capabilities as you provide more
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business impact you're probably going to
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get given more and exciting
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opportunities and higher
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responsibilities impact also signals to
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people the kind of return on investment
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they can expect from design and this can
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be really valuable for maybe you're
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applying it somewhere that you might be
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the first designer maybe they don't have
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design yet it could be a really early
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stage startup if you can show the impact
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that design can have
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they are going to be super impressed by
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that and probably more likely to hire
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you if you can show exact examples of
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how you have provided impact to a team
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or a company the more closely you can
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tie your design decisions your design
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input your contribution towards a
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project to the business impact or the
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impact of that project the more
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perceived value you can bring to a team
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okay so what if you don't have business
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impact maybe you're still studying you
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don't have a finished project or you
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don't have work that is shipped or maybe
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you just don't have access to this kind
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of information i think there's other
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types of impacts that are equally as
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valuable and important that you can talk
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about and share and i like to call that
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design impact design impact can include
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a number of things in my experience some
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examples of things that i correlate to
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design impact are things like
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improvements to design documentation
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influence on team culture and processes
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is there something you can point to that
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you did or you learned in this project
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that ultimately led to design impact
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maybe for example when you started the
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project there was no design system but
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throughout the project you realized hey
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we really need a design system for this
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and then maybe you went out and built
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one that is a great example of design
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impact you've realized a problem or an
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area of opportunity and you've taken the
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initiative to improve that not only for
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yourself but for the whole design team
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another example is maybe you think the
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design handoff process that you have in
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your team is inefficient and it's not
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working very well
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maybe you then end up collaborating with
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an engineer and figuring out how to
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streamline that process and how to
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improve it for the rest of the team are
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there moments like that where throughout
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a project you've seen that opportunity
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you've made an improvement and it's
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turned out to be really impactful for
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the rest of the team i have a few
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examples of these myself that i want to
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share with you now
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all right here we are in figma and i'm
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going to walk you through a presentation
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that i've put together and previously
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presented in job interviews all about
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the impact i've had in relation to
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design and i called this presentation
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building a ux practice because i wanted
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to share some of the stories about
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things that i've done and impact that
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i've contributed to in relation to
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building a ux practice and craft at a
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company so here we go let's do it the
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first section is around design
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excellence in the context of in internal
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setting so within a design team first
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example i have here is design
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documentation and here i talk a little
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bit about how i built internal sites to
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act kind of as a source of truth to
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document the design process any updates
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in relation to the design and project
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and also the decisions made throughout a
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project so here on the right is a visual
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example of an internal website that i
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created for a project that i was working
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on around lending so this is one example
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of how you can contribute towards impact
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in your team maybe you see opportunities
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to sort of level up their design
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documentation and how you
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capture all of the design decisions made
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or how you manage a source of truth in
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relation to a design project next is a
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workshop that i created and put together
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around figma for engineers so i saw that
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a lot of the engineers that i was
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working with at uber were not really
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savvy with how to use figma they hadn't
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had any
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training on how to use figma and so that
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resulted in me having to be really
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meticulous in my design handoff which
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was really time consuming and really
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frustrating so i thought okay what if i
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can just better train our engineers on
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how to use figma so i don't have to do
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all of the red lighting for handoff so
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this was sort of an internal side
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project i did and put together and it
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was sort of a whole presentation
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workshop to help educate our engineers
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and inform them on how to use figma so
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the impact of this is that ultimately it
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led to improving the design to
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engineering handoff the next one is
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around team process so
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i consulted a lot with design leadership
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on how we can improve our design
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practice giving feedback and suggestions
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on how to write our critiques or design
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reviews and all those kind of process
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things around the design team that
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ultimately i think helped improve a lot
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of team culture and relationships that i
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had with other people so i frequently
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worked with our design operations folks
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to
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improve processes and practices on the
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team so one for example was around
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collaborating with engineers and bug
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bashers and design handoff kind of
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related to the two examples prior but i
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wanted to highlight this because i feel
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like i played a really active role in
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contributing towards what's the culture
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we wanted on our design team all right
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that kind of leads into the next section
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really nicely which is on design culture
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and so one of the things i was really
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heavily involved with during my time in
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amsterdam was the uber design nights and
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so i kind of helped organize and run
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these big design art events we'd have
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200 plus attendees per event which was
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kind of crazy and we had a lot of guest
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speakers we would collaborate with you
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know other companies that wanted to come
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and speak at our event and so i was kind
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of running these on top of my full-time
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job we did like one a quarter i think so
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pretty regularly and i wanted to
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highlight this because i think this was
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really impactful for the amsterdam team
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we got a lot more people interested in
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working on our team in amsterdam we got
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kind of a bit of a reputation and a name
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within the local amsterdam design
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community so i felt like this was really
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important to highlight the next is
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around team newsletters so
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i
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initiated created and sort of curated
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the amsterdam studio newsletter which
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was sort of an internal design
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newsletter we sent out once a month to
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the wider design team and our amsterdam
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counterparts they kind of had an update
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about the design team some of the
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projects we're working on any people
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updates resources things like that and i
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kind of continued doing this on the
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ubereads team where i ran and curated
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the design index and that got sent out
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to again i think like the whole design
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org and the whole ubereats org we did
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that more like every six weeks like
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everybody contributed towards giving
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updates on their projects and the status
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of their work so yeah did a lot of like
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running internal newsletters um which
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was really fun uh also sometimes really
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challenging because you'd have to like
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chase people up and follow up with
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people um but i think this was also a
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really good example of design impact
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because it was about you know showing
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the work that we're doing as a team to
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others within the organization next is
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toronto events so when i eventually
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relocated to toronto
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i didn't do design nights anymore in
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toronto amsterdam kind of continued that
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tradition but one thing i did do was
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co-organize jam days with an engineer
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friend of mine it was kind of like a
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like hackathon but we wanted to call it
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jam days to kind of be more inclusive
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and another thing i ran was book club so
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these are kind of two different events
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that i was running for the toronto tech
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team um that were kind of like happening
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every six to eight weeks or so and again
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just wanted to show that i had this
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initiative to
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run and organize and create these events
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as like sort of a cultural initiative
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for the team next around design culture
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is design social so i ran the uber
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design twitter account during my entire
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tenure at uber
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very secretly and stealthily nobody
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really knew outside of uber that it was
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me behind the account but that was
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really really fun i also contributed to
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our medium to our dribble account and a
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bit to our instagram as well so just
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showing the contributions that i was
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sort of providing towards the social
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aspect of the design culture and team at
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uber
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all right team branding so i wasn't the
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designer behind these beautiful logos
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you see on the right but i did help
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consult and initiate so for example for
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the design nights we were doing we
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wanted some stickers so that was kind of
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part of the design nights and then also
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some of the
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public events that we did in toronto and
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so you know i just helped kind of
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consult and sort of help
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contribute towards what our branding
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would be as a team
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all right and the last section is on
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external stuff so giving back to the
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public or wider design community and the
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following projects i'm going to share
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are probably not new to you because
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you're watching me on youtube you know
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that i teach product design and research
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on youtube so i highlight that as well
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because i think that is really really
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impactful some of these numbers are
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outdated but that is fine i also have a
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podcast all about design that i do with
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charlie
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i also provide mentoring over on super
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pair so helping people one-on-one
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advance in their design careers or work
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through challenges that they're having
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with regards to their design career
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and then also a lot of public speaking
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i've given workshops i've spoken
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publicly at conferences at the uber
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design nights for example also now
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remotely at a lot of conferences so
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that's another aspect i wanted to
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highlight okay i hope that was helpful
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for you to see and that this provided
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you with some inspiration on how to talk
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about impact from a perspective of
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design impact and not necessarily
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business impact of course if you do have
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business impact that you can talk about
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with your project talk about it make
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sure you include it in your work but if
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you don't have it or if you want to add
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on in addition to that design impact
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that you've had that's awesome as well
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lastly if you want to talk about this
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and more with me one on one you can
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always book a mentoring session with me
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over on superpeer have a great week talk
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to you next time
