It’s not about design and research inclusion, it’s about quality.

When your product development team begins to reduce research and design efforts due to time constraints or other reasons, I no longer believe it's entirely about diminishing the roles of design or research. Rather, it's a shift in attitude towards quality. In these very common scenarios, our team implicitly suggests that compromising quality is acceptable if it leads to greater benefits. Therefore, the real concern is not whether you are working in an environment that values design, but in one that upholds quality.

I believe quality resonates deeply with designers, which is why it's particularly distressing when a team is willing to compromise on it. When a team neglects to validate its assumptions through customer research or to refine a design with meticulous details, such as animations, designers can feel marginalized. Yet, beneath this lies a deeper issue: designers sense they are contributing to a product that lacks quality.

Each role in a cross-functional product team bears the responsibility to maintain quality. Product should be driven by a quality outcome for the business, often measured in terms of revenue, growth, and engagement. Engineers are accountable for delivering quality through defect-free code within the bounds of feasibility. Designers are tasked with creating a quality experience that customers will appreciate. This balance is essential, not just for the sake of including all roles, which is beneficial, but for embedding quality into the development process.

Quality does not have to be costly or expansive, and its level should not be dictated by scope. Quality is a collective effort, best established at the kickoff of your projects, and it can happen on a project of any scope. When we sit down with our partners to define our understanding of quality and establish what it is not, we are managing expectations regarding quality's role in our process. Without this crucial initial step, any deviations or changes in the scope of our work can be frustrating and alienating.

This is why design is not as simple as some would like to believe. If we truly believe in designing a quality experience through visuals or research or any other crucial part of our craft, we have to be willing to do work outside of the hard skills of our craft that involve creating a sense of alignment and purpose with our team, particularly around quality.

I'd be curious to hear from others about this take on quality because I believe it starts to de-center the narrative about design inclusion we always hear to something more people can connect with, and I believe, value.