Being a good designer today doesn't just mean drawing pretty pictures or web designs. These will soon be drawn to you by an AI. And maybe even better than you. At the same time, AI cannot solve complex problems where business, technology and human behavior meet.
And that's where the future of design lies.
At the House of the Cutter we teach 12 key skillswhich is needed by everyone who wants to be relevant in design even in five years. We went through what really differentiates the top creators from those who just “deliver the outputs.”
We analyzed 12 skills of designers at several designer conferences in Czech and English.
1. Learn to manage the process
There are a number of designer workflows. Double Diamond, Design Thinking, Design Sprint, Systems Thinking, Creative Problem Solving...
Depends on which one you use. Different situations require different procedures. When you improve your e-shop (CRO), you are in a completely different situation than when you are looking for direction for your startup.
Have you decided on a specific procedure? You always have to know where you are and what is the right activity at a given stage.
In the divergent phase, you need to generate as many ideas as possible. Not immediately shoot them to the ground with criticism. In the convergent phase, you need to priotize. Not inventing new directions.
2. Understand the language of business
Managers think in two boxes. Tables. Business frameworks. Learn them so you can have a dialogue with them. This way you will be a relevant partner for the business.
A model example? Goals.
“We need a new website. “
It's super. What does the new website bring us? Increase sales by 30%? Bring in 10,000 active users? Shorten onboarding from three weeks to three days?
A new website is never just about a new website. You need to change the angle of view. The flight levels of the targets help us to do this.
- Outputs: What we will do — new homepage, app, redesign.
- Results: How do we change people's behavior -- more purchases, more frequent use, longer retention.
- Impacts: How will it manifest itself -- increase turnover, reduce costs, prevent loss.
The new website alone will not increase sales. You need to change people's behavior so that it has impacts. This means moving from thinking in “outputs” to “outcomes”. These are the only ones that lead to the impact on the business.
When you define a project as output only, it ends with execution. When you define the outcome, it starts with running -- and that's a whole different game.
3. Facilitate group work
Facilitation is the royal discipline of design. A three-hour workshop that actually shifts something is no accident. It is a combination of three roles:
- Facilitator — holds energy, pace and engages all participants.
- He's an expert — Guarantees professional quality.
- Technical Support — ensures that you don't get lost in tools and formats.
When these three roles work, people leave the workshop feeling “we've never worked this effectively.” After three hours, you have a finished pile of work instead of a pile of notes to take away from a three-hour briefing.
4. Research the people out there
Do you want to influence people's behavior? The easiest way is to start where they are mentally today. Most companies don't do research at all. So when you do it, you gain an advantage.
Forget about questionnaires. A rich and useful picture of customers is created when you combine multiple methods with each other.
- Qualitative methods (interviews, design probes, observations) → reveal unexpected connections.
- Quantitative methods (questionnaires, analytics, A/B tests) → confirm trends on larger samples.
You can concentrate on it,
- What people say (interviews, questionnaires)
- What people do (user testing, analytics, observations)
Start with a few. Already five good customer interviews will give you a head start on the competition.
5. Find meaning in data
Data doesn't mean anything by itself. You need to find patterns in them that make sense. It is sense-making.
You can do it manually — in a team workshop where you search for formulas together. Advantage: people accept the conclusions because they were at their inception.
Or by machine — for example via NotebookLM or ChatGPT, which can process hundreds of pages of conversations in minutes. It's fast. At the same time, people trust the results less.
The greatest strength is in combination. The AI will prepare the basic analysis for you, the team at the workshop will provide interpretation and decisions.
6. Set a strategy
A strategy is not an Excel spreadsheet full of KPIs. It's not even a roadmap presentation. The strategy is a set of challenging interconnected decisions.
A good strategy answers a simple question: Why should we win?
Practically, this means: navigate the situation → decide what to bet on → set goals and plans → carry out activities → evaluate and adjust direction. And most importantly: make better decisions than the competition.
In the field of strategy, a number of framerates can help you. For example, Wardley's maps, which help to see where it pays to innovate and where to just hold the standard anymore.
7. Come up with ideas
Everyone has ideas. Ideas are a commodity. Few have good ideas. These will influence people's behavior and produce results.
Ideation is not about getting together in a room and “figuring something out.” It is a process: Create → Follow → Oppose → Test.
- You come up with a lot of options.
- Develop the ideas of others.
- You ritually oppose them.
- And finally, you verify that they work.
A favorite self-delusion of designers is: “My ideas are so brilliant that people don't understand them.” The truth is different. If people don't understand your idea, it doesn't materialize.
8. Prototype faster than others
Creating a prototype previously took weeks to months. You needed programmers to do that.
Today? With a good AI tool, you have it in 10 minutes. You can create more of them. You can pick the best ones and then test them on real people.
Vibe coding is an essential design skill.
9. Verifying ideas cheaply and quickly
The three most common reasons why your idea fails:
- People don't need him.
- People don't understand him.
- People don't want to pay for him.
Therefore, you need to verify your ideas and prototypes consistently.
You can do validation of ideas quickly and cheaply.
- Landing page with conversion measurement.
- Quick ads that test interest.
- Concepts to show people during an interview.
Do you want to have a globally successful startup? You need to validate 20—100 ideas per week. And 20-100 of them a month must come out to you. Otherwise, someone innovates faster than you.
More conservative industries are logically slower. At the same time, few companies verify ideas before spending too much time and money on them. Therefore, validating ideas brings a competitive advantage.
10. Increase your efficiency
Design Operations means having processes, tools and knowledge-base that support efficient work. Internal Wikipedia, where you can reach anytime. No endless component tuning, no reinventing the wheel.
Today, it's not just about the knowledge-base. It is about AI-First Mindset. Use the best models and tools that exist. Because AI is no longer an “extra bonus”. It's a standard.
If your team works with tools that do not yet integrate AI, you risk becoming obsolete faster than the competition.
11. Manage your stakeholders' emotions
Managing a project is not just about tasks. It's about people. And people have emotions, ego and sometimes a bad day. You have to be able to work with them in order to influence them. For them to trust you. So that you can complete projects to the end.
The basis of stakeholder management is that you have enough energy to hear unpleasant things.
Do you want to withstand challenging situations? You need recharge your internal flashlights (sleep, movement, time to yourself) and increase their capacity (meditation, therapy, work with your own formulas).
Without power, you become a reactive brake on the project. With energy, you can handle the moment when the manager says to you after six months: “I don't like it. “
12. Deliver outputs
Project Management. He's not cool. At the same time there is a need. Without driving at least yourself... you just don't deliver. The basis is to abide by agreements and negotiate them.
A clearly formulated agreement, confirmed in writing and accepted by all is the basis.
It's the project's seatbelt.
When the terms change (and they will), the agreement gives you a solid framework from which to build. It protects you from “I thought that...” even from scrolling deadlines for no reason.
Without agreements, you risk chaos and unnecessary conflicts.
12 skills that will change your approach to design
From strategy and process management, to ideation and design operations to stakeholder work, detailed idea validation procedures and sense-making, all these skills will take you from an “image supplier” to a business influencer.
Want to go more in depth? Take a look webinar recording 12 designer skills.
Want to master these skills faster? In depth, with practical tools, exercises and application to your projects? Get access to Strategic design: self-study.
