Dara Kilicoglu

In his thought-provoking article Product Design Is Lost, Rune Madsen argues that product design has lost its way through several key failures: the field has become overly process-driven, disconnected from technology, and limited in organizational influence. He points to how design teams have retreated into formulaic checklists and research methods while becoming increasingly isolated from engineering. According to Madsen, this has led to a situation where designers, despite previous prominence, are now caught between strategy and implementation without real power in either domain.

The narrative that product design has lost its way is compelling, but there’s another reality to consider. What he sees as a retreat into process and standardization, I see as a necessary evolution that has actually expanded design’s impact, albeit in less visible ways. Here’s why.

The power of constraints in modern design

In a startup, the entire organization, backed by venture capital, is laser-focused on growth. Every decision, every tweak, every pixel is measured against its impact on sales, user retention, and overall growth metrics. While this might appear to constrain creativity, it actually creates a different kind of innovation, one born from solving complex problems within tight constraints. Consider a product designer at WhatsApp, serving over 2 billion users. Changing even the smallest feature could risk alienating millions. Yet, it’s precisely these constraints that have led to some of the most elegant solutions in product design. When every pixel matters, creativity doesn’t disappear, it becomes more focused, more intentional, and often more impactful.

Process as a platform for innovation

Where Madsen sees process as a creativity killer, I see it as a platform that enables consistent innovation at scale. Modern design processes aren’t just checklists, they’re frameworks that allow designers to focus their creative energy on solving the right problems. By standardizing the routine aspects of design, we free up cognitive space for meaningful innovation.

The standardization of design processes has democratized good design practices, making them accessible to more organizations and users. This isn’t a sign of design losing its way; it’s evidence of design fulfilling its ultimate promise: making good design scalable and accessible.

The evolution of design thinking and organizational impact

While Madsen notes that Design Thinking’s heyday is over, its principles haven’t disappeared, they’ve been integrated into the fabric of how organizations operate. This integration represents a deeper kind of influence than the more visible “design thinking workshops” of the past. Design principles now inform decision-making at all levels, from product development to business strategy.

Modern tools and workflows haven’t just made design more efficient, they’ve made it more influential by speaking the language of business while maintaining design’s human-centered core. This evolution has allowed design to impact organizational decisions in ways that weren’t possible during the early days of design thinking.

The new partnership between design and engineering

One of Madsen’s strongest criticisms concerns the separation between design and engineering. However, this gap is rapidly closing in forward-thinking organizations. The rise of design systems represents more than just a collection of components, it’s a new model of collaboration where design and engineering work as equal partners. Design systems themselves are the pinnacle of this collaboration, made possible by the hard work of hybrid profiles over the years, including creatives like Madsen himself. These systems don’t restrict creativity; they provide a shared language that enables designers and engineers to build more sophisticated solutions together.

Looking forward: The new creative frontier

Product design has matured and evolved to meet the complex challenges of modern digital products. The field now enables teams to deliver consistent, user-centered solutions at scale while maintaining space for innovation within constraints. The challenge for designers today isn’t to resist this evolution but to embrace it while finding new ways to push boundaries. This might mean: ¹ Using data and research as creative inspiration rather than just validation, ² finding opportunities for meaningful innovation within established systems, ³ developing deeper technical understanding to collaborate more effectively with engineering, ⁴ leading the integration of emerging technologies like AI while maintaining human-centered principles.

📷 Ryoji Iwata