July 23, 2025 | 12 minute read
An update on my Hiring for Creativity research study
I kicked off my first research study in early June, and I've completed my data collection, a lot of synthesis and interpretation, and a first rev of a paper. The actual content from the study is fascinating, but I'll save some of that until I have a solid draft to share. My reflections are more on the process itself; what strikes me the most is how prepared I am to do this form of academic work, as a result of working in and out of consulting for 25 years:
- Design research, in practice, requires producing buttoned-up and thoughtful plans quickly, and in a style that anticipates problems and proposes ways to mitigate risk. I've gained a sense of assurance and confidence in an approach because I know it works, and because I trust myself to adapt it when necessary; this is probably true in any space, but in consulting, I have to present a sense of confidence, and that really does cut off self-doubt by necessity of building client trust.
- In consulting, there's only a few people on a team, and often, only me. That means I'm doing everything, and if I don't do it well, I'm only screwing myself. So I've learned to manage a tight grid of participant data, track progress of the minutia of transcription, editing, compensation, and scheduling, to do transcript scrubbing, and so-on: the things that make a research program actually happen, but which might be delegated in a resource-rich environment to someone more junior.
- After doing so many research programs, I know, operationally, where the train is headed, so I can prepare for it. I know that after I conduct an interview, I have to transcribe it; I know it will need to get cleaned; I know it needs to end up in a spreadsheet or managed data source; I know I need to find relationships; and so-on. The process is known, even if the method is new, so I don't have to waste time figuring out what happens next.
- Finding meaning in data, quickly, is second-nature, because that's the whole point of design research for a client. There's no time to hang around and reflect, because there's only a few weeks or days in the schedule to find connections and themes. So I can do that work effectively, heads-down, even when it's not thrilling. Put another way, I've learned to use All Of The Time, because there's so little of it in a consulting program.
- Telling the stories, or discourses, is exactly the same as storytelling and narrative building in a readout, but with a different language. I'm used to building a story with photographs of people in their environments, but with only five or six words on a slide, and I'm used to my medium being a deck. Now, my words are all I have. It's freeing, in some ways - it's a luxury of language and the ability to be specific. I don't actually think I can be as direct as I can with the oh-so-perfect photograph, but it's so hard to get it in the field. This really shifts the storytelling entirely out of the field; my data gathering is about gathering, whereas I always had a little bird on my shoulder in client fieldwork reminding me that I had to actually do something with the content later, so don't forget to take the picture in landscape and crop their face off...
- I get to write stories, which has turned into a magic power in consulting ops, because that's all I did at Narrative; contracts, emails, decks, thoughts, diatribes - it's all about writing stories, and that's the currency of a research study.
Throughout this whole process, I found myself continually thinking, I don't understand how a PhD student can do this when they are 22 years old and fresh out of their undergrad or masters program. Anything, everything, would be so awkward, from recruiting to interviewing to building a plan, to even finding focus for a study... it must be so frustrating to be learning how to do all of this while somehow learning how to care about a topic deep enough to direct a course of study that, theoretically, defines a good part of your academic career. It's maybe a disservice to even encourage people to get their PhD out of school. That feels similar, the same as encouraging high school kids to go pick a major, even though they can barely get themselves dressed in the morning...
Anyway, this was an extremely fulfilling process, and I'll see it through to publish and at the same time start spinning up a few more of these. I want to extend this into the actual design classroom, maybe focused on how studios are taught, or maybe on how undergrads do or don't learn.
In the meantime; here's my working set of takeaways for your evening reading pleasure:
Findings
Excerpted from Hiring for Creativity in a World of UX Design Systems
Design managers in mid-sized and large corporations:
- uniformly use design systems in their work to ensure consistency and streamline software production,
- see value in moving quickly and in working within a limited framework of pieces and parts, and
- require junior designers to use these systems, which makes up the majority of the job for these less experienced designers;
but at the same time, they also:
- value junior design candidates who can challenge existing assumptions, question requirements, and produce unexpected or novel situations to problems,
- do not see evidence of these abilities in design portfolios when hiring, and
- fear that design systems are eliminating the need for these creative skills entirely.
These findings are explored in more detail below.
Software design is largely about assembling interfaces from pieces
Across these interviews, many leaders spoke as though the commoditization of software design is not just inevitable, but already here. They framed this not as a sudden loss but as a structural evolution—an evolution deeply rooted in formalized processes and tools. At the center of this evolution is the design system. Linda described it with color: “...the Holy Grail of having consistent interaction design, look and feel, tone of voice, architecture, and it’s, gosh! It’s the foundation that we use to start any of the detailed design.”
For Laura, the system brought order to a world that had felt improvised and chaotic: “My products came out of a startup culture, and everything is a little bit janky, like some buttons are this height. Some buttons are green over here. It looks different over there. Everything is just kind of a mess.” Gerry, too, spoke about the system’s practical benefits, noting how it allowed his team to move quickly and keep work aligned, while Melvin explained how his own system enabled him to rationalize multiple navigation bars and accelerate development cycles.
Yet, even as these leaders praised the strategic gains in speed and consistency, they were far less enthusiastic about how design systems shape daytoday work. Pete offered a striking metaphor: “We only have four colors, you can use whatever combination you want to. Have fun. You’re like, well, I like the color blue. I don’t see blue here. Well, good luck. That’s your problem.” His comment carries the frustration of a constrained palette masquerading as freedom. Karlos was even more direct, calling the automation “by definition, contrary to creativity.” Kerry echoed this sentiment, describing systems as dehumanizing—“you have to be like a cookie cutter machine”—while Jim called them “stagnant… there’s not very much at all creative about the design system.”
Not all leaders saw systems as purely restrictive. Some described them as scaffolds that still leave room for expression. April reflected on the often-repeated LEGO metaphor: “Is building something with LEGOs creative? Maybe not, if you’re following the instruction booklet, but if you’re trying to build something custom to what you need, I think that’s creative.” Her framing suggests that creativity is not removed so much as reframed: designers are given a starting point, but innovation depends on how they work within it.
What emerged in several conversations was a sense that this kind of creativity is unevenly distributed—treated as a privilege, not a baseline expectation. Alex described how junior designers often want to jump straight to invention: “I see junior designers try to dunk the ball before they can make a good pass… it’s really important that you learn to paint the fence and wax the car.” His words frame creativity as something earned through mastery. Kristine went further, describing an intentional division within her team: “It’s important for maybe 75% of my team to be creative. I’d say that for the other 25%, it’s just important for them to ‘do’… to whip stuff out.” In some organizations, then, exploratory creativity is positioned as a reward for discipline and tenure, while a significant portion of the team is expected to focus solely on execution.
This division also shapes hiring practices. Regardless of how each leader framed creativity inside their team, all agreed that candidates must already be fluent in design systems and the tools that support them. Laura was unequivocal: “Unless they’ve spent time perfecting Figma handson skills, they’re not gonna get hired by me.” Linda offered an even starker example: one of her colleagues no longer reviews portfolios at all—“she just asks them to open their latest Figma file.” In this context, tool fluency and system adherence have become the table stakes for entry, while the kind of creativity leaders claim to value remains aspirational, reserved for those who earn the chance to exercise it.
Design leaders see their nostalgia colliding with software production
Interviewees repeatedly describe a conflicted posture: they are responsible for staffing teams that can execute within strict systems, yet when they hire, they want to see the kind of creativity they themselves once practiced—back when the profession was immature and product development was far less streamlined. This tension shows up in the way they talk about design and in the way they talk about hiring.
For many, questioning requirements and challenging assumptions are still seen as the highest forms of creative contribution. Carla put it plainly: “I don’t think you’re very creative if you just accept everything at face value.” Dan more directly shared the same sentiment: “If they accept established assumptions, don’t hire this person.” These reflections reveal that what managers want to see in a candidate is not just craft skill, but evidence of curiosity, skepticism, and a willingness to reshape problems rather than merely solve them.
When these leaders describe what they hope to find, they often reach back to their own formative years in design. Karlos recalled a time when the field felt alive with experimentation: “I grew up working in websites that were really fun to see, really, really crazy designs, really new things. Now everything is pretty standard. It’s pretty boring.” Dan expressed a similar sentiment, tempered with selfawareness: “Maybe this is just me getting old… but I feel we have lost the exploratory inquisitive nature of design.” These recollections are filled with nostalgia, but they also highlight a fundamental mismatch between the design culture that shaped them and the one they now oversee.
That nostalgia becomes more complicated when positioned against operational demands. Jim spoke to this contradiction: “I want someone who will challenge us, but I’m also looking at how fast they can deliver inside our system. It’s both.” Portfolios that surprise and delight are celebrated in theory, yet surprise can be disruptive in environments that prioritize consistency. Pete captured this tension in how he evaluates candidates: he wants designers who can “cut through the computer, and somehow make me feel your voice, like you give a shit,” but he tempers that desire in practice: “probe, challenge a little bit… not scorched earth, though.”
Several leaders reflected on how this contradiction plays out after hiring, as junior designers encounter the reality of the work. Linda described the process as a kind of rite of passage, watching idealism wear down over time. Dan was blunt about the cost: “I think everyone’s creative. I think some people just have it more beaten out of them than others.”
The nostalgia in these conversations is not naive—it is grounded in real experience. Yet the hiring decisions these leaders make reveal the friction between those memories and the current demands of their teams. They want both challenge and compliance, both surprise and stability. When forced to choose, most hire for the work that needs to be done now, even as they quietly wish they could hire for the kind of design that inspired them in the first place.
Bootcamps are oversaturating the field with unprepared designers
Design managers repeatedly tied the portfolios they review to the educational paths candidates have taken, and many voiced concern that schools—especially bootcamps—are producing designers who can run a process but cannot dig deeply into a design problem. Carla was skeptical of the value of these programs: “You’re trying to teach in 12 weeks what we did in 4 years. And it’s not possible.” Others echoed her view, describing a pipeline optimized for speed rather than mastery. Matthew added nuance, pointing not to student effort but to the structure of the programs themselves: “I’m not saying they’re evil or anything… I think a lot of people were just being sold a bill of goods. You’ll go through this program in six or twelve weeks and you’ll graduate and get a job? That’s just not the case. It’s not a nursing program.”
Across participants, there was a shared sense that these compressed paths yield portfolios heavy on surfacelevel methods and light on authentic problem framing. Jim described what he sees over and over again: “I’ve seen the formula. Here’s the problem. Here’s the executive summary of what I did. Here’s the linear story of how I did it, starting with the sketches. And then the research. Probably 90% of portfolios are like that, and it gets really tired.” Laura was even more cutting in her assessment, calling much of it “high school level UX work.” For these leaders, the sameness signals a lack of independent thinking. Portfolios that follow this pattern become evidence not just of weak candidates, but of a discipline shifting toward shallow assembly.
This perception shapes the hiring process in tangible ways. Managers spoke of scanning portfolios for any sign that a candidate had gone beyond the basics—any spark of curiosity, rigor, or risktaking that broke the template. Yet the volume of formulaic submissions often drowns out those signals. Gerry recounted posting a role and receiving “over 1000” applicants—“everybody and their brother and sister”—only to find that the majority “ran the gamut of all the tools that they had learned in boot camp, and they threw in design, language systems, it was always the same.” His frustration underscores a broader fatigue with an oversaturated market of lookalike portfolios.
However, not every manager ties potential to formal education. Several emphasized that what matters most is what a candidate can show. Jim explained, “I think your portfolio, your actual work and your actual professional experience is what’s gonna make me want to hire you. Not, did you go to this college or this boot camp.” Kristine herself didn’t graduate with a bachelor’s degree, and Matthew noted, “There are so many good designers I know who don’t have a bachelor’s degree, or any degree.” In their view, the credential matters less than the evidence of thought and craft. But the reality they describe is that many applicants, particularly those from bootcamps, are offering neither—and in a field where a single job post results in thousands of applicants, those applicants have a very, very poor chance of getting a job.