Lead with Purpose, Design’s Central Role in Realizing Executive Vision

In 2019, a research team of ID students and professional researchers from Sylver Consulting, sponsored by Capital One, Ford, Google, Philips, VMLY&R, and Salesforce, conducted qualitative, one-on-one, hour-long interviews with 51 US design and/or business practitioners to learn about the near-future of roles in the design field. Research team: Divya Iyengar, Divya Jain, Prapti Jha, Laurel Komos, Renjie Li, Julia Rochlin, Harsh Wardhan, and Andi Zhou. Faculty: Brianna Sylver. Denis Weil wrote in the project report: “Through this research, we wanted to know what design roles would look like in three to five years, and what skills individuals will need to fill those roles. This pursuit is of course germane to our own interests in higher education, as ID houses a graduate school. But we are also known for our pioneering work in demonstrating the value of design to businesses, organizations, and communities. So, true to our roots, we extended our line of questioning to better understand the larger organizational picture and design’s roles within it.”