hebel. today · 12 November 202623 / 74

Arts · Design Thinking

Designers shift focus from pixels to organizational bottlenecks

Design teams often discover that their most refined outputs fail to address the actual problem, a trap that requires zooming out to investigate the underlying system. When a banking app team investigated why users…

Design teams often discover that their most refined outputs fail to address the actual problem, a trap that requires zooming out to investigate the underlying system. When a banking app team investigated why users ignored a specific feature, they discovered that users trusted the feature too little to engage with it, prompting a shift from navigation design to trust-building (User Experience University). Similarly, a designer who stops at crafting a perfect icon may miss that the icon itself is redundant or that an organizational bottleneck makes it unnecessary in the first place (UX Collective). By treating every day as a prototype, teams can identify these invisible frictions, as Phil’s IBM experience demonstrated, by working directly with affected employees to remove processes that reward old behaviors rather than the new ones the company intends to foster.

  • Cardiac surgeon Dina improved her fluid movement during complex cases by sketching before procedures and taking two minutes outside before scrubbing in (Michael Kovnat from The Next Big Idea Club Book of the Day…).
  • Mathieu Kassovitz secured financing for his film La Haine by shooting in color to satisfy broadcasters, while releasing it in black and white in cinemas (UX Collective).
  • Jørgen Vig Knudstorp saved LEGO by cutting the number of unique pieces in half and guiding every decision with the question: Does this build on the brick?.
  • Stijn Noorman suggests reverse-engineering goals by starting with the desired outcome and working backward to identify the necessary milestones for reaching a $10,000 monthly revenue (Stijn Noorman from Write to Grow).
  • Miranda advises mapping 30% of current design projects directly to the specific business priorities that a skip-level manager cares about this quarter (Strategic Studio).

Try today · 30 min

Identify one stalled process and run a 'friction removal' session

Ask team members which specific approval or policy slows them down today.

You need

  • A list of team members affected by the process
  • A whiteboard or shared document

Steps

  1. List the steps of the stalled process.
  2. Ask each participant to identify one step that adds friction.
  3. Determine if the step can be removed entirely.
  4. Assign one person to remove the process step by Friday.

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Sources

  1. User Experience University on hebel. →This piece outlines three questions to identify hidden assumptions before starting a project and potentially wasting weeks on the wrong problem.

  2. UX Collective on hebel. →This article highlights the stonecutter parable to explain how designers can change their altitude from pixel-level tasks to organizational system impacts.

  3. Michael Kovnat, The Next Big Idea Club Book of the Day… on hebel. → ✎ Written by a personThis newsletter describes how LEGO CEO Jørgen Vig Knudstorp used strict limits to restore focus and how a surgeon integrated painting to improve performance.

  4. Stijn Noorman, Write to Grow on hebel. → ✎ Written by a personThis article explains the reverse-engineering method for setting milestones based on a desired financial outcome.

  5. Strategic Studio on hebel. →This guide provides a practical approach for mapping design work to quarterly business priorities to protect the team's resources.

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