"Value" might be the most overused word in the Tech Industry.

In investor-led conversations, amid the endless chorus of "creating value" and "value prop," the word has become so trite it's practically meaningless. Yet here I am, a design leader trying to articulate what design actually brings to the table — dancing across multiple levels of craft from production to storytelling to principled compromise — and I keep coming back to this same damn term. Sigh. 😔

So how do we talk about the actual bonafide value of design without being lost in empty corporate speak?

After years of navigating this tension, I've found it helpful to think about design through three distinct but interconnected lenses: value, quality, and discipline. Each offers a different way to frame design's contribution and each helps cut through the noise in its own way.

Design as value: Impact, inspiration, influence

When pressed to define design's value, I often reach for the familiar frameworks: the triad of usefulness, usability, desirability. Or I'll invoke Eames' Venn diagram of various overlapping concerns, or dive deep into Richard Buchanan's humanistic approach — is the design good, fair, just, right? The effects of choices and so forth…

But in practice, I've found design's value manifests most clearly in three ways — in terms of impact, inspiration, and influence:

• Impact of something tangible and observable — an outcome you can point to, measure, or at least describe with specific criteria. Like a physical impact, there's something left behind, of consequence & resonance.
• Inspiration is about provocation & stimulation — sparking imagination around optimistic possibilities while also generating productive arguments that tease out what's truly critical or essential.
• Influence acknowledges that design happens through relationships. Understanding your cross-functional peers' goals, motives, and deeply held beliefs — then knowing how to shift them through the powers and artifacts of design — that's powerful value indeed!

Design as quality: Beyond pretty pictures

"Design" remains a frustratingly loaded word. It's either too emotional or too pedantic, buried under over-justified rationale that's evolved into trendy buzzwords. And still, even today in 2025, design is too often seen as simply making things look sexy, exciting, glamorous. Pretty. Ugh. 😑

But quality? Now that's a word we all respond to favorably.

When we think of quality, we think of something well-made, crafted with durability & strength. There's an aesthetic dimension too — elegance, a poised balance of visual and tactile qualities — but it's not just about looks. Quality suggests something that can stand the test of time. (Or at least until the next major release! That's the life of software…)

So I've learned to lean into this. At one company, I led "Design QA" sessions to verify implementation accuracy against approved specs. Later, I helped spearhead a company-wide "quality" initiative — my subtle code for "design-driven" — without triggering pre-existing bias. The word "quality" broke the ice with engineers & business leaders alike. It bypassed the messy baggage around "design" and helped us connect on shared ground. We all want to deliver something of high quality, something we can be proud of. Who doesn't, right?

Quality becomes a pathway to design's deeper value that's both tangible and distinctive — cohesively applied brand qualities, UX patterns, and UI components that support & respect the customer's time, effort, and money.

Design as discipline: Beyond creative whimsy

"Process" can be a super touchy word in Tech. 😅 It connotes bureaucracy and time-wasting tedium, all for its own sake. Suggesting a team follow a "design process" can sound like an emphasis on project management — a mechanized, sequentialized procedure. Big burden. Huge snooze!

Yet we urgently need design to be seen as more than idiosyncratic artistic spontaneity (like those Mad Men drinking-and-spacing-out scenes). There must be rigor, systematic thoughtfulness, deliberation toward tangible — and yes, even measurable — outcomes.

So I talk about discipline instead: As a team and company, how can we establish a sustainable discipline of design? Let's apply design discipline to this problem. We need a disciplined approach to tackle this ambiguity.

Discipline suggests two things that help the designer make their case:

• Design as rigorous activity —with intensity and reflection, a methodical cadence guided by rules, constraints, and criteria.
• Design as established approach — something that's accorded recognition and space for how it enables the team's goals.

By framing design as discipline, we confer professionalism to the practice of designing and position the designer as a dedicated practitioner worthy of merit and respect, like an engineer or business manager.

The thread that connects

Value, quality, discipline — these aren't just semantic tricks or corporate camouflage. They're different facets of the same fundamental truth: design matters not because it's mysterious or magical, but because it's a systematic way of solving problems that puts people first.

Design is a systematic way of solving problems that puts people first.

When we talk about design as value, we're acknowledging its measurable impact on human experience. When we frame it as quality, we're connecting to everyone's intuitive understanding of craft with care. When we position it as discipline, we're owning our "seat at the table" as rigorous professionals.

But here's what makes this moment different: In the AI era, that integration is our new craft. ✨

We're not just pushing pixels or plotting flows anymore — we're shaping feedback loops, tempering automation with care, and designing dynamic systems that still make space for people to feel seen. This is difficult work with emerging patterns, practices, and principles still being developed.

The challenge isn't choosing between value, quality, and discipline — it's knowing how to weave them together while navigating unprecedented complexity. AI doesn't replace human judgment; it demands more of it. More of our ethics, our empathy, our discernment. More of that careful blend of strategic foresight, creative provocation, and deep humanism.

When every tool promises to "streamline" or "optimize," our job becomes more essential, not less. We become the stewards who ask not just "can we?" but "should we?" We're the ones ensuring that in our rush toward automated efficiency, we don't accidentally design people out of their own experiences! 🤨

Because at the end of the day, that's what design is really about: making the complex simple, the alien familiar, the impossible inevitable — while ensuring people still feel belonging in the world we're creating. Even when we're just trying to explain what we do for a living. 🙏🏽