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It’s a common refrain among design leaders today: Design finally has buy-in. After years of being ignored, designers are getting the recognition and investment they craved, whether they’re working for a tech giant, a healthcare startup, or a white-shoe firm. But with acceptance come new challenges. To find out how design priorities have evolved and will continue to evolve in 2018 and beyond, we talked to design chiefs from some of the most innovative companies and recognized brands, including IBM, Microsoft, Uber, and Visa.

What emerged was a snapshot of how deeply design has integrated into the landscape of corporate America. As Joanna Peña-Bickley, head of design for Amazon AWS Internet of Things, puts it: “If you have design in the C-suite you are more likely to be the disruptor, not the disrupted.” But design also has far to go if it’s going to achieve what the profession’s idealists have always sought to achieve and change the world for the better. Here are the key design priorities at seven companies, which are shaping the future of everything from finance to retail to healthcare.

[Image: StudioM1/iStock]

Uber: Designing Trust Into A Company That Desperately Needs It

With a new CEO at the helm, changes to its executive board, and a renewed focus on profitability, Uber is trying to right its ship after a tumultuous 2017. The role of design in that transition, according to vice president of design Michael Gough, is to introduce a more empathic and considered approach to the company and the product. The rapid expansion model that helped Uber scale is no longer sufficient for a company that on the surface may be running an app but in the process is creating new economies. “If we got a button wrong at Adobe, people complained,” shares Gough, who prior to Uber led design teams at Microsoft and Adobe. “If we get a button wrong at Uber, entire economies get disrupted. You have to think about all these repercussions, because little mistakes can have incredible downstream consequences.”

Gough likens design at Uber to working on a vast global networked system. The company not only touches millions of people through its apps, but is also a source of income for as many as two million drivers, and has introduced new business models and services all over the world. Designers need to be thinking as much about individual interactions as about broader economic, cultural, and social issues. That awareness is in stark contrast with Uber’s historic treatment of drivers, when the dark arts of UX design were used to manipulate them to drive more. Today, top of mind for Uber’s design teams are questions like what constitutes meaningful work, how to enable upward mobility, and how to design the service in a way that is culturally appropriate and relevant in markets with different social norms.

On the responsibility of design to minimize unintended consequences, Gough is direct. “Uber has to be acutely aware of its impact because we are global, we are at a ridiculous scale, and we are so core to people’s essential needs.” He acknowledges that evaluating unintended consequences and making the necessary trade-offs gets complicated fast, but unless you are constantly searching, you can’t hit intended consequences either. This more mindful approach might be the key to Uber’s ultimate new goal: getting the love back.

[Image: StudioM1/iStock]

Hopelab: Using Design And Technology To Improve, Not Deteriorate, Mental Health

In 2018, Chris McCarthy hopes to see design make a greater impact on the healthcare industry. McCarthy is vice president of innovation and strategy of Hopelab, a nonprofit that uses design and technology to improve the well-being of teens and young adults, and, in his telling, healthcare is “on an incremental journey of acceptance” with design, especially as it intersects with technology.

And for good reason. Nothing is more intimate than our health. Mental health, in particular, underscores the caution with which our technological overlords must proceed. On one hand, experiments with chatbots and digital modules that nudge patients toward a better frame of mind show promising results. On the other, research links excessive smartphone use to a range of psychological and behavioral issues. Yet given the overburdened mental healthcare system, smartphones remain a key channel to reach youth effectively and at scale. “How will we provide the most benefit via technologies and minimize the negative impact of those technologies?” McCarthy asks. He believes design holds the key.