Business Potential of Cross-Disciplinary Design: Part 1

By Hilary Cluett, President UX Vocab Club – A Service Design Agency

Are you a doer?

As a business leader, you are constantly under pressure to innovate, stay competitive, and
deliver exceptional customer experiences. Unfortunately, many solutions fail to meet the
market’s evolving needs.

“Some business leaders like to dream about the outcome and talk about it and
even invest in it, but they won’t do the work that’s required to get there.” –
Eitan Markus, Business Coach.

What is the root cause? It could be thinking in a silo, working in isolation, operating in a
vacuum, or narrow execution.

Do You Make Decisions in a Bubble

Many organizations still operate within departmental silos, with designers, engineers,
developers, and other key stakeholders working in isolation. A fragmented approach leads
to business challenges that hinder operations, solutions, products or services from
reaching their full potential.

Three Major Business Challenges of Siloed Design

Let’s explore three significant business challenges caused by siloed design and how
integrating cross-disciplinary expertise can offer practical solutions.

1. Prioritizing tunnel vision over collaboration slows down time-to-market
2. Building without cross-functional input disconnects from customer needs
3. Ignoring broader execution results in difficulties differentiating in the market

Challenge 1: Slow Time-to-Market

In today’s fast-paced business environment, speed to market is essential. When product
development, UX, and visual design teams operate separately, miscommunication and
lengthy review cycles slow down the process, leading to missed opportunities. For
example, one client the UX Vocab Club worked with reduced their product development
cycle by 75% by adopting a collaborative design approach.

Combine Specialists and Accelerate Market Validation

In our example, the UX Vocab Club created a cross-collaborative team to streamline the
innovation pipeline. We enabled rapid ideation and prototyping by combining civil
engineering and user experience design specialists with brand strategy, marketing, and
systems management. We validated the concept and significantly accelerated the
startup’s time to market.

Challenge 2: Disconnect from Customer Needs

Designers working in isolation may create aesthetically pleasing solutions that fail to
resonate in the real world because they make assumptions about the customer’s wants
rather than understanding their behaviours and needs.

Comprehensive View of the Customer Experience

Innovative solutions can address genuine problems for a target audience when a cross-
disciplinary team provides a comprehensive view of the customer experience,

For example, one business we worked with saw a 40% increase in customer bookings
after adopting a collaborative approach.

• A user researcher uncovered deep insights into customer frustrations with
  navigational language.
• A service designer mapped the end-to-end journey, including the shortcomings of
  the payment portals.
• A visual designer brought the insights to life with a new website integrated into the
  client management system.

Challenge 3: Difficulty Differentiating in the Market

Siloed design teams may produce visually appealing but generic products and services
that fail to capture your brand’s unique personality and will not help you stand out in a
crowded and competitive industry.

Cohesive, Differentiated Experiences

For example, to build a functional and unique offering that helps you rise above the noise
and connect with customers on a deeper level, you might look for these types of designers
to work on your team:

• Industrial designers create distinct product forms.
• Interaction designers build intuitive digital interfaces.
• Brand strategists ensure that the visual identity and messaging align.

The Path Forward

The evidence is clear: businesses that embrace cross-collaborative design unlock their
competitive edge. By breaking down silos and tapping into diverse expertise, you can
overcome your most significant challenges and deliver innovative solutions that drive
tangible results.

Ready to get started?

In Part 2 of this series, we’ll explore the steps you can take to foster this collaborative
mindset within your organization and assemble the right cross-disciplinary design team.
Until next time!