Business Thinking for Designers

We’re the new kids on the block
I’ll be blunt. Designers need to learn business because we can’t 
expect our counterparts to listen just because we’ve arrived. 
We need to meet them where they are. That means learning 
what other functions do, why it’s important, and being able to 
bridge the communities of business, design, engineering, and 
product.
Driven by digitization, companies around the globe have 
created products and services over the last 25 years at 
an unprecedented scale. They’ve needed engineers and 
developers to turn big ambitions into practical realities. 

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Why you need to know business
And now that competition is fierce, business leaders turn to 
designers to find new ways to create value.
While the power of design is making products and services 
better, it’s important to remember that we’re joining an 
ongoing conversation. And the truth is: they could build things 
without us. 
It’s 2020 and design is a key differentiating function for 
many companies, but it’s still an optional function. To deal 
with existing cultural norms in a business—and shape new 
ones—designers must show how they provide value to those 
functions that have been there all along.
Pro tip
Paul Adams gave a direct, and perhaps hard-to-take, view of 
designers called The End of Navel Gazing at UX London in 
2018. It’s a serving of humble pie, but it highlights that we’re 
not victims of the business environment. That was a lesson 
I had to learn at EA. Becoming business-aware gave me the 
ability to contribute to more diverse meetings. By learning 
the language of business, I was empowered to step out of the 
victim mindset.

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Why you need to know business