Designers and the Product team
A few weeks back, I had a chat with a senior product designer who had just moved into a new role a couple of months earlier. He wasn’t just excited about designing better experiences—he was determined to redefine how design operated within the company. When he joined he was informed that all they need from him is a “design that popped” — beautiful design. But. knowing well that great design is more than just piecing attractive colors and lines together and he was quick to identify that the role of a designer in the organisation is not understood, he had to start active engagement with senior leadership, advocating for a more embedded role in the decision-making process. He wasn’t content with being looped in when screens needed to be polished. He wanted ‘design’ to shape the product from the ground up.
Welcome to Episode 24 of Product with JnrJose
I remembered him telling me what he told both the design team and leadership, “Look, I told them straight up—design isn’t here to just ‘make things pretty.’ If we’re not influencing strategy, we’re failing the product.” And honestly, that hit me. Because he wasn’t wrong. Too often, designers are treated as execution support rather than strategic drivers of product success. And yet, the best product teams—the ones that build experiences people love—don’t just bolt on design at the end. They bake it in from the start.
Design Is Not Just About UI—It’s About Thinking
Tim Brown, in Change by Design, talks about how design isn’t a department, it’s a mindset. He writes:
“Design thinking is a discipline that uses the designer’s sensibility and methods to match people’s needs with what is technologically feasible and what a viable business strategy can convert into customer value and market opportunity.”
That right there? That’s the missing link in so many product teams.
Too many companies still think of design in narrow terms—as if it’s just about pushing pixels, refining UI, or making sure the typography looks nice. But real design isn’t about decoration—it’s about problem-solving. It’s about reducing friction, shaping user behavior, and aligning business goals with human psychology.
This is where Nir Eyal’s Hooked comes in. He emphasizes that:
“User experience designers are the unsung heroes of habit-forming technology.”
And yet, so many teams still treat them like afterthoughts.
Think about your own experience with apps and platforms. The ones that feel seamless, effortless, and intuitive? Those aren’t accidents. They’re the result of deeply intentional design decisions, often made long before the first screen was ever mocked up.
What Happens When Design Isn’t at the Table?
I won’t pretend that every product team out there ignores design, but I’ve seen enough of them sideline it in ways that are… let’s just say, counterproductive.
One time, I learnt from a product design team in a company where product managers would shape the roadmap, engineers would scope feasibility, and only after everything was locked in, the designers were brought in to make it “look good.” By then, the key decisions had already been made—sometimes in ways that made zero sense for the user experience.
The result?
Confusing workflows – When design isn’t involved early, user flows often become complex and unintuitive, forcing users to take unnecessary steps or struggle to complete key actions. This leads to frustration, inefficiency, and a higher likelihood of drop-offs.
Bloated, feature-heavy products – Without proper design input, teams tend to over-prioritize features instead of refining core functionality, resulting in products packed with unnecessary elements that overwhelm users rather than providing real value.
Users bouncing because nothing felt intuitive – If a product’s navigation, interactions, or layout don’t align with natural user behavior, people quickly lose patience and abandon it in favor of something simpler and easier to use.
And here’s the frustrating part—it wasn’t because the designers weren’t talented. It was because they weren’t brought in when it mattered most.
Tim Brown nails this in Change by Design when he says:
“Too many organizations are structured to accommodate efficiency rather than innovation.”
Meaning? If your design team is only operating within the rigid boundaries of “what’s already been decided”, you’re setting yourself up for mediocre experiences.
How Design Should Operate in a Product Team
The best teams don’t separate design from strategy—they embed it.
In a solid product operating model:
Designers work alongside PMs and engineers from day one. Not after strategy is set, not after dev starts, but before any big decisions are made.
Designers are not just advocates for “good UI” but for usability, accessibility, and behavior change. (Again, shoutout to Hooked—if you’re designing a product that needs engagement, you’d better be talking to your design team early.)
Design isn’t just about execution—it’s about shaping business outcomes. If designers are only measured on how fast they push screens, something is wrong.
Nir Eyal puts it this way:
“Products that successfully create habits benefit from designers who understand their users' behaviors better than the users themselves.”
This means that design isn’t just about aesthetics—it’s about how people interact with your product, how they experience value, and how they build habits around it.
Making Design an Equal Partner in Product Success
The senior designer I mentioned at the beginning? He didn’t just complain about design being undervalued. He actively worked to change the dynamic. He started looping himself into meetings that weren’t “design-related.” He challenged leadership on why designers weren’t part of early discovery. He worked to reshape the company’s operating model so that design had a voice at the decision-making table.
And that’s really the takeaway here.
If your product operating model treats design as a support function rather than a strategic driver, your product will never reach its full potential. Design needs to be in the mix before the roadmap is finalized, before features are scoped, before decisions become irreversible.
Because at the end of the day, design is not just about making things pretty—it’s about making products work for the people who use them. And that? That’s the real measure of product success.