As thousands of designers settled into a cavernous event space on the outskirts of London—laptop bags slung over shoulders, Stanley cups of cold brew in hand, waiting to hear about the latest feature roadmap from Figma—it struck me how familiar this all felt. Not just the scale and spectacle, but the underlying dynamic.
A lot of designers, especially those with a strong systems-thinking mindset, pride themselves on being rigorous problem-solvers. We stress-test ideas. We poke holes in weak assumptions. We say things like “That won’t work because…” or “The problem with that is…” and we think we’re doing our job — helping move the team forward, protecting users, flagging risks.
But let’s be honest: a lot of the time, we just come across as… difficult.
Most product requirement documents (PRDs) are boring, transactional, and—let’s be honest—kind of useless. They tend to be a simple feature request with a rough deadline, putting all the thinking and risk on the product and design teams.
But what if your PRD could do more?
When pilots call up air traffic control (ATC), they don’t just announce their presence—they request a specific level of service based on their needs. For small aircraft, this often starts with a basic service, where controllers keep track of the flight and notify emergency services if something goes wrong. If pilots need more, they can ask for a traffic service, where ATC provides warnings about nearby aircraft. For even greater support, there’s a deconfliction service, where controllers actively give instructions to help pilots avoid collisions.
This structured approach got me thinking: Should design teams operate in a similar way?
What WWII sabotage techniques can teach us about well-meaning designers (and why the rest of the org sometimes rolls their eyes).
Designers, let’s talk about an uncomfortable truth. For many of us, the joy of our craft lies in creating work that is not just functional but exceptional. We love unearthing hidden user insights through research, challenging assumptions, and asking the kinds of questions that lead to elegant, transformative solutions. To us, this feels like the very essence of design: solving the problem in the best way possible. But here’s the rub...