The Brief: Microscopes and telescopes
Design Better30 Juli 2025

The Brief: Microscopes and telescopes

Microscopes and telescopes By Aarron Walter A friend and former colleague called me recently to catch up and get my perspective on an important question. He leads a product team at a major tech company and the design team had just been moved under him. He’s an exceptional product thinker with a sharp grasp of engineering systems and shipping processes. But managing designers? That was new territory. “Where should design really fit in our workflow?” he asked. What struck me most was that he asked at all. Too often, when design moves under product in a re-org, it becomes a service function. Something to be brought in after the big decisions are made—to polish the edges, add the visuals, and make things look good. That, of course, sells the value of design short, and my friend sensed it. He didn’t want design to just support the work of engineers. He wanted it to play a part in shaping the product. So I shared what I’ve seen in organizations where engineering and design truly thrive together: it starts with recognizing that engineers and designers bring fundamentally different perspectives to the table. *** To read the full version of The Brief, visit our Substack: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/the-brief-microscopes-and-telescopes

Avsnitt(241)

Paul Dichter: Stranger Things writer on why the writers’ room isn’t so different from the design studio

Paul Dichter: Stranger Things writer on why the writers’ room isn’t so different from the design studio

Both Aarron and I are official Stranger Things nerds. We watched the show ourselves when they came out, and again when our kids were old enough. As children of the 80s, the way it captured that partic...

22 Apr 32min

Tessa Forshaw and Rich Braden: "Innovation-ish" and why most innovation doesn’t have to be a moonshot

Tessa Forshaw and Rich Braden: "Innovation-ish" and why most innovation doesn’t have to be a moonshot

We’re all familiar with the tropes around innovation and how it starts. You just need a garage in Silicon Valley, a few geniuses and visionaries, maybe some good snacks. Our guests today help us debun...

16 Apr 46min

Luis Mendo: Designer turned illustrator on making things that could only come from you

Luis Mendo: Designer turned illustrator on making things that could only come from you

Luis Mendo is a Spanish-born illustrator based in Nagano, Japan, and his work is unmistakably, irreducibly human. His drawings are populated by bespectacled bird-like figures — part alter ego, part ph...

8 Apr 32min

David Shim and Rachana Rele: Read AI CEO and VP of Product Design for AI-native products at Adobe on amplifying creative work — not replacing it

David Shim and Rachana Rele: Read AI CEO and VP of Product Design for AI-native products at Adobe on amplifying creative work — not replacing it

Today we have two guests from two different companies who have one shared conviction: AI works best when it amplifies people, not replaces them. Today we’re joined by Rachana Rele, VP of Product Desig...

1 Apr 35min

Leonardo Giusti: Archetype AI's co-founder on physical AI and the limits of the chatbot

Leonardo Giusti: Archetype AI's co-founder on physical AI and the limits of the chatbot

Leonardo Giusti has spent his career in the spaces between disciplines — between art and science, between research and product, between the physical world and the digital one. It’s not a conventional ...

25 Mars 28min

Brooke Hopper: Adobe's machine intelligence design lead on what AI can't touch

Brooke Hopper: Adobe's machine intelligence design lead on what AI can't touch

Brooke Hopper stays close to her craft. Before she hopped on a call with us to chat about her role at Adobe, she was deep in Cursor prototyping navigation design ideas. Though Brooke holds an individu...

18 Mars 47min

Daisy Fancourt: Epidemiologist on how creativity rewrites your biology and extends your lifespan

Daisy Fancourt: Epidemiologist on how creativity rewrites your biology and extends your lifespan

You probably already know that exercise, sleep, a good diet, and spending time in nature are the pillars of a healthy life . But what if there’s a fifth pillar we’ve been undervaluing, and in many cas...

12 Mars 46min

Fiona Crombie: Academy Award-nominated production designer on storytelling without words

Fiona Crombie: Academy Award-nominated production designer on storytelling without words

If you’ve ever wondered what a movie production designer actually does, our guest today describes it in the simplest terms: it is everything you see in the frame that isn’t a costume. It turns out, p...

4 Mars 22min

Populärt inom Business & ekonomi

framgangspodden
varvet
rss-jossan-nina
rss-svart-marknad
svd-tech-brief
rss-borsens-finest
badfluence
uppgang-och-fall
avanzapodden
bathina-en-podcast
fill-or-kill
24fragor
rss-inga-dumma-fragor-om-pengar
lastbilspodden
tabberaset
kapitalet-en-podd-om-ekonomi
rss-dagen-med-di
rss-kort-lang-analyspodden-fran-di
borsmorgon
rss-veckans-trade