Recently, we had the pleasure of sitting down to pick the brain of Nancy Dickenson, talented UX designer and the Executive in Residence for Bentley University’s HFID Graduate Program. With a bit of back and forth, we got some wonderful insight into the UX field from this long-time field participant and shaper, who looks back over her time in UX design.

Nancy: Many companies confuse design thinking and design — design thinking is user-centered, strategic, creative problem-solving. That is a skill that all product roles should take part in. UX designers should be positioned to lead design thinking because they also bring their specific designer skills, knowledge and talent to both strategizing and executing great products.

Often, designers are not viewed as a strategic resource. As such, they are only invited into the product process during final execution, to “make the pages pretty.” Apple’s products have significantly changed users’ expectations — the technology and the design must now succeed together. By doing this, Apple raised its market capitalization to become the most valuable company in the world. No technology product company today can afford to cut design out of the product strategy conversation, but 98% of all companies don’t have a clue how to do it.