Why design leaders need to move at the speed of trust

A talk by Archana Thiagarajan, Vice President, Experience Design at Adobe

As the pace of change quickens and new technologies (including AI) are rapidly adopted, design leaders across industries must balance speed-to-market with thoughtful design strategy. When users are trepidatious about new capabilities and the technologies behind them, ensuring their trust must come before everything else. Instead of just designing for the speed of that technology, we need to design at the speed of trust.

Design leaders and their teams are uniquely positioned to help their companies thread this needle. In this talk, Archana Thiagarajan (Adobe’s VP of Design, Digital Experience), shares key principles for design leaders and teams to reevaluate their understanding of user trust, how to design for it, and how to rally support from non-design partners and stakeholders.

Archana Thiagarajan

Vice President, Experience Design at Adobe

Archana Thiagarajan is a Vice President of Design, leading a team of enterprise designers for Adobe’s Experience Cloud business. Over more than two decades, her work and leadership has influenced the design of products for the traveler, army, navy, homeland security, analyst, marketers and now experience makers. Strong partnerships, inclusive design processes and driving to a clear point of view are the fundamentals to the teams she leads.

Archana is the recipient of Adobe’s 2018 Founder’s Award. She was recognised by Women Tech Council of Utah as one of the top 12 women tech leaders in Utah for 2015. She was featured in Utah Valley Business Q magazine’s 40 Under 40 edition (2016). She is an accomplished vocalist and has performed on numerous platforms and occasions.