Design in Tech Report 2019 — post launch thoughts

John Maeda
5 min readMar 14, 2019
The Design in Tech Report 2019 is now live

The fifth Design in Tech Report has officially launched and although the response has been positive, what I enjoy the most is reflecting upon what I probably should have put into the report. If you haven’t paged through it yet, I made an abridged version on the eve of the report for subscribers to my monthly briefing — it suffices as a “trailer” of what I cover in the report.

The report spans a total of six sections:

1) TBD = Tech × Business × Design

How do technology, business, and design interrelate in the startup and corporate ecosystems today?

Computational Design …

… works in a new Moore’s Law-fueled medium that is from an alien universe.

… makes big data. And that makes it need thick data to combat scaled biases.

… creates economic opportunity because it advances a valuable new kind of talent.

… needs to counterbalance itself with an emotional connection (i.e. art).

… is the most valuable kind of design right now in the technology industry.

Inclusive Design …

… works in an old-fashioned world that’s been excluding people for too long.

… fights big data (scaled biases) when making thick data — by going proximate.

… locates imbalances and opportunities to solve problems with those impacted.

… enrichens the critical depth of makers, pointing them to meaningful problems.

… is the most important kind of design right now in the technology industry.

2) About Design-___ Organizations

John Maeda

John Maeda: Technologist and product experience leader that bridges business, engineering, design via working inclusively. Currently VP Design and A.I. at MSFT.