Building design into the business

I joined AT&T in 2022 to build design and research inside the technology organization, a group of engineers and product developers working on new networking and security products. There was no integrated design and research function. Within a year there were fifteen practitioners across research, product design, and service design, and product teams had started defining the customer before writing requirements and bringing research in at the start instead of the end.

In late 2024 I moved into the product organization and did it again at a larger scale. Product design, user research, and service design had grown up separately. I brought them together as one Experience Design function with one remit: shape what the business builds, not just how it shows up.

The org chart was the least interesting part. What changed was when design got called in. At first, design was asked to render decisions that had already been made. Now it’s in the room while offers are still being shaped, and in the reviews where leaders decide whether something is ready to ship.

I’d done an earlier version of this at UnitedHealth Group, leading product and service design across consumer health services.

What changed

• Design and research grown from nothing to fifteen practitioners

• Three disciplines brought together as one Experience Design function

• Research built into how new products get defined, not bolted on at the end

• Design moved from rendering decisions to shaping them