My Mission
There's a long road of learning how to design in a business setting that makes you stronger eventually. I'd like to help you get there sooner.
You are not alone.
One of the greatest challenges I faced as a solo product designer in 1999 at a local software firm was being professionally alone.
I was surrounded by incredibly smart and savvy engineers. They were extremely good at what they did but they weren’t designers like I was a designer. The seemingly chaotic mindset that I brought to the table, bringing visual order out of behavioral chaos was magical to them. And while I did well with the projects set before me, I didn’t know if what I was doing was the most effective it could be.
Business stakeholders were another animal. They knew exactly where they wanted to be financially, strategically, and goal oriented in all other matters of business. Yet, they weren’t designers either. When it came to software design, they would make their best guess with their authority behind them, but their choices weren’t always wholistic, systematic, or driven by the user task.
You know this—“Make the logo bigger…”
So, I stumbled and blundered and learned a lot along the way.
You may be a designer in a sea of business and technology people, but I can tell you there is light on the other side.
When I became a Design team manager, I knew I was alone.
Managing design and designers took Design to a whole new level. I was no longer conducting day-to-day meetings and interfacing with the same challenges I had before. I was asking myself, “How do I grow people?” Specifically, “How might I strengthen the designers on the team to be better designers?”
When I step back from it all, I see a common thread. There is not only a core to explaining how effective designers produce, but a core to every creative endeavor business people, technologists, or anyone else undertakes. We all struggle with the same thing—we’re very good at what we do, but do we know why are we doing it.
I'm not talking about the company mission. Rather, do you know why you should place this button in the top-right and not the top-left? Or, why for this product the top-left is actually ideal? These aren't minor details. These are design decisions that cost weeks of churn for product teams and in the end reason is more about guesswork than purpose-driven design.
Once you unlock purpose, you unlock creativity.
My mission is to show every creative person you are not alone. Purposes not only drives your work, but also your life—or it should.
My purpose is to strengthen you as a designer, design leader, and product design team by showing you how to infuse this way of thinking into every aspect of what you create.
Why does purpose matter?
I go into depth in this article—check it out.
Darrell Estabrook
It’s not enough to simply create something. That’s fine and all, even with deadlines and quick turnarounds. It’s an entirely different thing to be intentional about every aspect of a design even under those same circumstances. Every pixel should have business value for being there, otherwise we’ve added decoration, cost, and unforeseen consequences.
When you understand the intended outcome you’re designing for, you can begin to make design decisions that matter. You can effectively communicate these decisions with confidence, and open the doors to truly collaborative designing (even with non-designers).
The core of creativity in business is to design with a why. This is Designy.
Where are you in your design career?
I’ve lived through these two seasons designing enterprise UX software in business for almost 30 years: When I know nothing, and when I know everything. I’ve lived in both these camps, and not necessarily in that order.
There are seasons where you may feel you know nothing. Perhaps you’re learning a new domain you need to design within. Or it’s times you’re working against a non-design mindset with the team, department or business you’re in. These season’s are the toughest, but you learn the most—if you want to.
On the flip side, feeling you know everything, well, that’s both the most exciting and most dangerous season. These are times where every dragon of a problem looks like a grasshopper to you. You navigate the seas of tumultuous processes with ease and maybe even grace. Yet, it’s easy to slip up, overcommit, or find out you missed a critical and obvious gap.
Okay, there is a third state. That’s this middle season where the status quo means comfort. No boat rocking. No swirls. Yet no real growth in your craft either. Perhaps you hit a wall, or maybe you don’t know if there’s any better way.
How I can help
No matter your season, you can get strengthen your effectiveness as a designer of user experiences in a business environment.
- Difficult Stakeholders? I can show you how to bring collaboration back into the conversation.
- Desiring to build a cohesive Design Team? Learn ways to strengthen them in the craft of designing in the open.
- Designing in an engineering silo? Become the literal interface between business, users, and developers.
This site is dedicated to giving you practical strategies you can use today and will strengthen your design craft.
Today is a great day to design with a why!
