Finding Our Way

Peter and Jesse discuss findings from Peter's survey of 750 UX pracitioners on organizational health. Designers feel good about their work but struggle with quality standards, staffing, and career growth. Senior practitioners are the unhealthiest group. Reporting structure predicts team health. Consulting teams outperform in-house teams, where visionary design capabilities have atrophied and empowerment remains elusive.

Product leader, author, and civic tech veteran Christian Crumlish joins Peter and Jesse to discuss his transition from UX to product management and his experimental AI product manager, Piper Morgan. The conversation explores how product and design roles can be natural allies rather than adversaries, where AI truly adds value versus hype, and how practitioners can thoughtfully adopt new tools while staying grounded in fundamental UX principles and maintaining agency over their practice.

Figma's Head of Insights Andrew Hogan joins Peter and Jesse to explore emerging trends in design practice as AI transforms creative workflows. The conversation examines how role boundaries are blurring across product teams, where AI delivers real value versus hype, and design's growing opportunity to lead strategic orchestration in increasingly complex digital experiences.

Product Discovery coach, teacher, and author Teresa Torres joins Peter and Jesse to explore the messy reality of organizational change and cross-functional collaboration. She discusses why external coaching has limits, how individual contributors can drive change within resistant systems, and what the rise of AI means for blurring roles between product, design, and engineering teams.

Dr. Lesley-Ann Noel, Dean of Design at OCAD, joins Jesse and Peter to discuss her global journey from Trinidad to Toronto, leading design education through relationships over craft, preparing students for social change, and her vision for decolonizing design while navigating the tension between academic values and industry demands.