Design Process
My Approach to Design
My design philosophy is rooted in creating human-focused, data-informed solutions that prioritize simplicity, collaboration, and scalability. Every project begins with a clear understanding of user needs and business goals, ensuring that the right problems are being solved. I believe great design comes from blending creativity with strategy, informed by research and real-world insights. By fostering collaboration across teams and maintaining a mindset of continuous learning, I strive to deliver intuitive, impactful user experiences that meet the needs of diverse audiences and scale effectively.
I have three values that make up my leadership philosophy:
Empathy
See the problem through their eyes. Build trust through understanding.
Simplicity
Remove what’s in the way. Let people focus on what matters.
Scalability
Build systems that grow with you. Support velocity through consistency.
The first is empathy and to start with a deep understanding of people. That applies to users, of course, but it also applies to our teams, our partners in engineering and product, and the people who make the business run.
Simplicity, for me, is about distilling complexity down to what’s essential. Helping users work with clarity and efficiency. And in leadership, it means cutting through ambiguity, setting clear direction, and giving teams the confidence to move forward.
Scalability is about building systems — not just design systems, but team systems, operational models, and communication patterns that allow you to grow without breaking what’s working. That’s something I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about and practicing, especially in my last few roles. These values have shaped the way I lead teams, structure organizations, and work with cross-functional partners.
Clarity Over Control
I value clarity over control. I believe the goal of design leadership isn’t to enforce process. It’s to help teams ask better questions, choose smarter tools and techniques, make better decisions, and deliver with confidence. That’s how I lead them.
Navigating The Landscape of Design
I look at design process like navigating a landscape…
Sometimes the path winds. The goal is clear, but the terrain demands patience, elevation, and good footing.
Early discovery and research help you read the landscape, choose the right route, and stay grounded as you move forward.
Other times, the path is clear, and you move fast with focus, precision, and trust in the system beneath you.
Speed comes from structure and confidence. A strong design system and fast feedback help teams move quickly and stay on track.
Not every project needs the same process.
I also believe in using design to minimize risk and want to emphasis that with you today. I don’t believe in one-size-fits-all frameworks. I calibrate based on the type of risk, and what the moment requires.
I give designers a toolbox, not a rulebook. That way, they can adjust based on the problem they’re solving and the level of risk involved. I see design as a way to reduce risk—for users, for teams, and for the business. The goal isn’t process for its own sake. It’s about choosing the right tools at the right time to move forward with clarity. This is the lens I use before applying any process: What’s the risk here? Is it strategic, workflow-related, or business-critical? That shared understanding helps us decide how much structure to use—or whether speed is the smarter choice.
Be Curious
I’ve always liked this sketch by Julie Zhou, former Product Design VP at Facebook. To me, it reflects what I do champion: know where you are in the process, but stay curious. Different problems require different paths. I try to to help teams stay grounded, experiment with intent, and learn our way to the best outcome.
Leveraging the Jobs-to-be-Done Framework
At Tealium, we relied heavily on the Jobs-to-be-Done (JTBD) framework to guide key projects, including the redesign of Tealium Connectors, updates to our navigation information architecture, and improvements to complex workflows. JTBD provided a powerful lens for understanding user motivations, enabling us to design solutions that directly addressed their goals and challenges.
By using JTBD, we:
Uncovered Core User Jobs: Conducted research to identify what users were trying to achieve and the barriers they faced.
Prioritized Impactful Outcomes: Focused on designing solutions that delivered measurable value by improving the jobs users needed to complete.
Streamlined Workflows: Simplified data activation workflows, making critical tasks faster and more intuitive.
Enhanced Product Usability: Redesigned the Tealium Connectors experience by aligning it with user priorities, ensuring ease of use and efficiency.
Improved Navigation: Updated Tealium’s navigation structure to better reflect user mental models, helping users find what they needed faster and with less frustration.
The JTBD framework was instrumental in aligning cross-functional teams around a shared understanding of user needs. It shifted the focus from features to outcomes, ensuring that every design decision contributed to solving the most critical user challenges.
The results of these efforts included improved customer satisfaction, enhanced product usability, and increased team alignment. By embedding JTBD into our process, we ensured our designs not only looked good but also worked better for the people who used them.
Design Process Applied
This video offers a behind-the-scenes look at how our design process came to life during the creation of the GlobalMeet Collaboration product. It demonstrates how the four phases—Discovery, Definition, Ideation, and Validation—were used to transform initial ideas into a polished, user-focused solution.
Originally created by the Product Design team at PGi for our annual sales kickoff, the video highlights the collaborative nature of our approach and how aligning design with business goals led to impactful results. From early research and user interviews to prototyping and iterative testing, this case study showcases how a structured process can drive innovation and deliver a product that meets both user and business needs.
Video Credits
Created in collaboration with PGi Product Design
Director | Editor | Videographer
Writers
Rishi Kaneria, Therese Mushock
Design Strategy, Team Leadership, Direction
Bill Victor
Voiceover
Rishi Kaneria, Therese Mushock, Leif Andersen
Motion graphics
Rishi Kaneria, Andrew Stewart, Leif Andersen, Bill Victor
Stock footage
Getty Images
The Principles That Guide Our Process
Behind every successful design process is a set of guiding principles that shape how we approach challenges and collaborate as a team. Through collaborative workshops, our team defined these shared values to anchor our work and ensure consistency in everything we create:
Human focused, Data informed.
We ask the right questions to our users to make sure we are equipped to make the best design decisions. We aren't blindly data driven, but we are informed with data to create the best experience for our users.
Keep it simple.
Working across multiple cultures and time zones is no easy feat. We strive to design solutions that are simple and easy to use to meet the user wherever they’re at.
We work together.
Design shouldn’t be a mystery. We work inclusively together across multiple disciplines to create the best experience for our users, as well as helping our colleagues through the process.
Always learning.
Design is never finished. We approach our designs with the intent to learn.
Think universal.
Our products impact people’s lives across the world. We need to strive to make sure our products are scalable and approachable by all.
Be consistent.
We create familiarity and strengthen intuition by applying the same solution to the same problem. This involves utilizing our design system, but also thinking about how we can be consistent as a team in our design approach.