A Designer’s Book Guide to Empathy, Influence, and Communication
I've been in tech for just about thirteen years now, and I’ve worn a lot of hats over those years. I started on the engineering side, where precision and efficiency were the driving forces. Then I hard pivoted to become a craft-obsessed IC product designer, pouring over details, refining micro-interactions, and pushing for visual perfection. As I grew, I stepped into people leadership, shaping team culture, fostering collaboration, and bringing cross-functional partners along for the journey.
Through all of it—engineering, systems thinking, service design, user research, accessibility, critique, and storytelling—a few things have remained constant for me: great design isn’t just about what we build; it’s about how we bring people along for the journey. And the best designers don’t just push pixels—they think beyond individual screens, beyond aesthetics, and beyond the immediate moment to:
- Balance function, aesthetics, and accessibility.
- Use storytelling to align teams and drive impact.
- Take ego out of design while staying confident as an expert.
- Push beyond MVPs to create MLPs (Minimum Lovable Products).
- Embrace critique and feedback as tools for better outcomes.
- Understand AI’s role in shaping the future of design.
Without going over the top into a saga of book recommendations (which I could list for days), I'm hoping a few key sections and recommendations below help distill what I’ve learned—from engineering to leadership, from individual craft to team impact—into a structured approach to building products, fostering collaboration, and designing for the future.
These reads helped me overcome over-investing in visuals at the expense of function, get better buy-in from stakeholders, balance my confidence, and start prioritizing acccessbility. So I'm going to break this down into three core parts:
- Empathy & Systems Thinking–Designing for real people, real constraints, and real impact.
- Feedback & Communication–Using critique, storytelling, and influence to drive better outcomes.
- Collaboration & Leadership–Making accessibility, AI, and long-term thinking part of the product culture.
Part 1: Empathy, Systems Thinking, and Designing for Real People
Early in my career, I thought design was about perfect UI, fluid animations, and meticulous visual details. I obsessed over pixel precision, assuming that great design was all about polish. I quickly learned, a stunning UI means nothing if it’s not accessible, intuitive, or solving a real problem. I learned that friction isn’t always bad—sometimes, it’s a feature, and that beauty and function aren’t opposites—they need to work in balance.
The best designers zoom out—beyond the screen, beyond the feature, beyond the immediate interaction—to how a product fits into a user’s life, workflow, and world.
📖 Thinking in Systems
This book changed how I approach design. Early in my career, I was focused on perfecting UI screens, but Thinking in Systems taught me to step back and consider the bigger picture—how products interact within an ecosystem, how user behaviors evolve, and how systems shape experiences in ways we often overlook. If you're moving beyond UI into ecosystems, AI, and service design, this is a must-read
📖 Inclusive Design for a Digital World
I used to think accessibility was something to check off at the end of a project, or embarrassingly enough, not consider it at all. This book is a fantastic read that nails the inclusivity isn’t a feature—it’s the foundation of great design. The practical techniques here helped me shift from thinking about the "default" user to ensuring everyone can interact with our products, whether they're neurodivergent, have limited mobility, or use assistive technologies.
📖 The Best Interface is No Interface
So many products over-rely on UI when the sometimes the best solution is to often break out of it entirely. This book challenged me to think beyond screens—toward automation, ambient computing, and interactions that don’t require constant user input.
📖 Creative Confidence
For a long time, I was obsessed with getting everything perfect before sharing my work. The Kelley brothers show how experimentation and iteration are at the core of innovation. It‘ll teach you that a half-baked idea shared early is better than a perfect idea shared too late. If you struggle with perfectionism, this is the book for you.
Key Takeaways from Part 1:
- Design isn’t just about screens—it’s about solving real problems. The best designers think beyond pixels to how products fit into people’s lives.
- Accessibility and function aren’t extras—they’re essentials. A stunning UI means nothing if it’s not usable.
- Systems thinking helps us design for scale, adaptability, and the future. Every design decision ripples across an ecosystem—great designers anticipate and design for those impacts.
Part 2: Feedback, Storytelling, and Communicating Design Decisions
The biggest shift in my career wasn’t learning a new tool—it was learning how to frame design decisions in a way that gets buy-in and drives action. Here’s the hard truth, you can create the best design in the world, but if you can’t explain why it matters, it won’t ship. It won’t get prioritized. It won’t make an impact. Good designers create. Great designers influence. The way you tell the story of your design is just as important as the design itself.
📖 Radical Candor
I first read Radical Candor when I started at Capital One as part of my design team onboarding, and it fundamentally changed how I thought about giving feedback. Kim Scott’s framework helped me navigate the balance between directness and empathy, especially as I moved into leadership. This book is essential for anyone looking to foster open, honest critique without crushing morale.
Radical Candor: Fully Revised & Updated Edition: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity
Kim Scott
📖 Discussing Design
Another shoutout to my time at Capital One—I had the opportunity to work with Aaron, and his insights on design critique completely transformed how I approach feedback. I remember walking into his workshop with a "what could I possible learn from this" attitude, and not only was his workshop incredible, his book helped me see critique as a shared tool for improvement. If your team struggles with giving or receiving feedback, this book will change that.
Discussing Design: Improving Communication and Collaboration Through Critique
Adam Connor & Aaron Irizarry
📖 Presenting Design Work
One of the biggest lessons I learned as a designer is that great work doesn’t sell itself. Early on, I thought my designs should "speak for themselves"—but they didn’t. This book will teach you to frame work in a way that resonates with PMs, engineers, and leadership. Now, I see every design review as an opportunity to align teams, tell a story, and drive impact.
📖 Storytelling for User Experience
I used to struggle with getting stakeholders to care about research findings. This book will help show you that data alone doesn’t persuade—stories do. Now, instead of just presenting insights, I craft narratives around user needs, pain points, and behaviors. If you want your design decisions to actually stick, read this.
Storytelling for User Experience: Crafting Stories for Better Design
Whitney Quesenbery & Kevin Brooks
📖 Articulating Design Decisions
If I had to pick one book to recommend to every designer, it would be this one. So much of our job is explaining, defending, and adapting our decisions. This book helped not only me shift from "I like this because it looks good" to "This supports the user goal, aligns with business objectives, and fits technical constraints", and not just me, my cross-functional partners too by helping spread that gospel. If you want to build confidence in design discussions, this is your book.
Articulating Design Decisions: Communicate with Stakeholders, Keep Your Sanity, and Deliver the Best User Experience
Tom Greever
Key Takeaways from Part 2:
- The best designers don’t just show work—they make people feel the problem they’re solving. If you can’t make others care about the problem, they won’t care about your solution.
- Feedback should sharpen design, not derail it. Good critique moves work forward, not sideways—and great designers learn how to guide the conversation.
- Storytelling isn’t a soft skill—it’s a survival skill. Data and logic inform decisions, but stories make them stick.
Part 3: Collaboration, Leadership, and Designing for the Future
As I moved from IC to mentor to leader, I realized that great designers don’t just create great products—they shape how teams think about design. The strongest designers aren’t the loudest voices in the room—they’re the ones who get teams to rally around a shared vision.
Over the years, this mindset helped me:
- Embed accessibility into design systems so it’s a default, not an afterthought.
- Turn stakeholders into champions for design, instead of gatekeepers for business needs.
- Navigate AI’s growing role in design—without getting lost in the hype.
Design is evolving. The next era will be shaped by accessibility, AI, and strong design cultures. The question is: How do we make sure we’re shaping it with intent?
📖 The Culture Code
When I transitioned from an IC to a leader, I realized that team culture matters as much as design skill. This book helped me understand what makes some teams high-performing and collaborative, while others fall apart. It’s essential for designers working cross-functionally, trying to elevate design’s impact beyond just the design team.
📖 Mismatch: How Inclusion Shapes Design
The first time I read this book, I had an oh shit moment. Kat Holmes breaks down how exclusion is often built into design by default—and how we can change that. One thing that stuck with me is her perspective on "situational disabilities"—how things like holding a baby, being in a noisy environment, or wearing gloves can impact usability just as much as permanent disabilities. This book will make you rethink accessibility as a competitive advantage rather than a compliance requirement.
Mismatch: How Inclusion Shapes Design (Simplicity: Design, Technology, Business, Life)
Kat Holmes
📖 The Algorithmic Leader
As a self-proclaimed AI boomer, I’ve had to play catch-up on AI’s role in product design. This book was one of the most pragmatic, hype-free takes on AI that I’ve read. It breaks down how automation, personalization, and machine learning are shaping design—and what we need to do to adapt without losing the human touch.
The Algorithmic Leader: How to Be Smart When Machines Are Smarter Than You
Mike Walsh
📖 The Fearless Organization
I've always seen a slight struggle with getting teams to speak up in critiques. This book showed me why: psychological safety is the foundation of great teams. It’s a must-read for anyone leading teams, facilitating critiques, or trying to foster an open design culture where people feel safe sharing ideas without fear.
The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth
Amy Edmondson
📖 Sprint
I’ve used the Sprint methodology countless times to get teams aligned and making decisions fast. The structured five-day process is great for breaking through design paralysis and getting real feedback from users before investing too much in a single direction.
Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days
Jake Knapp
📖 Made to Stick
I’ve sat in too many meetings where great ideas fell flat because they weren’t framed well. Made to Stick helped me understand why some ideas resonate and spread, while others die in a slide deck. If you want to make your design arguments more persuasive, your presentations more impactful, and your work more memorable—this book will show you how.
Key Takeaways from Part 3:
- Great teams share a design mindset—not just a design team. The most impactful designers don’t just build great products—they shape how teams think about design.
- Accessibility and AI aren’t trends—they’re defining the future of design. One ensures inclusivity, the other reshapes how we create and interact. Both need to be intentional, not reactive.
- The best leaders don’t just push for better products—they build better design cultures. Great design doesn’t happen in isolation—it happens when teams trust, challenge, and elevate each other.
Final Thoughts: Balancing Craft, Confidence & Collaboration
At the core of great design is a balancing act—between ego and adaptability, aesthetics and function, pushing forward and pulling back.
Great designers:
- Take ego out of the equation—but stand firm when it matters. As my dear friend Casey once said, "I won't die on this hill, but I'll get injured on it". Knowing when to push and when to pivot is what separates good designers from great ones.
- Balance aesthetics, accessibility, and usability. A design that looks beautiful but fails functionally or excludes users is not a great design. The best work happens when all three elements are in harmony.
- Use storytelling to drive action, not just admiration. Great design isn’t just about what we make—it’s about how we communicate its value. A beautifully designed product that never ships helps no one.
- Think beyond MVPs to create Minimum Lovable Products. Good enough is a starting point, not a finish line. The goal isn’t just to launch—it’s to create experiences people actually love.
At the end of the day, design isn’t just about what we build—it’s about how we bring people along for the journey.
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