Tech is at an existential crossroads. Designers got laid off en masse, and many haven’t found new jobs. Those left are stuck in a cycle of burnout, mistreatment, and despair for the future.

It’s easy to feel helpless. But looking at our industry from this perspective isn’t productive for your job in the short term, and it isn’t healthy for your career in the long term.

Another world is possible.

Take a step back. Look at your work from a different angle. There is a better way forward for our industry, and it starts with asking why people buy design in the first place.

Designers are good at researching why people buy, but the majority of us don’t perform the same research on our own jobs. Why do clients choose to work with us? Why do we get hired to practice design? What’s our own purpose?

Asking these questions is essential because it helps us understand the value that we bring to others. Our “customers” are other businesses. When businesses invest in anything, including people, they do so with the intention to increase profit, lower costs, or reduce risk, regardless of their size or industry.

People buy design because there’s an expensive problem that needs to be solved in a way that the designer’s specific expertise is uniquely suited to solve. You can gain awareness of these problems and build your expertise to address them. And when you do so, you’re more likely to survive a round of layoffs. You might be given more power. You might find a job that respects you. In short, you might finally pull up that ever-elusive seat at the table that we all keep hearing about.

What if your career had a bright future? What if design was just getting started? What if you became viewed as essential?

None of this is theoretical. There are many designers in this position right now – including the one writing this. We’ve spent the better part of a decade practicing what we call value-based design. We just had our best year ever, and we want to give you the power you need to bring design back from the grave.

What is value-based design?

Value-based design calls for an expansion & redefinition of our design practice to focus on the direct impact of our work. By grounding our work in the gathering of evidence & measuring the effects of what we do, we’re more likely to find the most urgent, expensive problems that a business faces & solve them head-on.

When you become a practitioner of value-based design, you’ll:

• Understand how to ground design decisions in evidence.
• Accurately measure the impact of your decisions.
• Run experiments on higher-risk changes, thus reducing the risk to the business.
• Apply the soft skills you need to survive & thrive in any organization.
• Advocate for design in a way that’s impossible to ignore.

We wrote the definitive book on value-based design, and we want to teach you everything we know, hands on, to help you level up your career.

In March of 2024, we ran a 5-hour workshop that sold out & was well-received:

Nick made intimidating research tools approachable, and provided clear examples of how even small-scale analysis & testing could enhance my existing services. As a visual designer navigating a conversion-focused industry, I feel better equipped to find & showcase the impact my work has for my clients. This course will give you confidence to measure your design decisions in pursuit of better ones.

– Jamie Sanchez, Curiouser

Now we’re relaunching it in two new forms: a self-paced course built alongside Badass.dev (their first-ever design course!), and a bespoke workshop for larger teams. Presenting the Value-Based Design Workshop, the definitive hands-on way to level up your design career.

Everything you should have learned in school.

This workshop is best for individual practitioners or teams who already understand the basic principles of design, and want to use design to gain more power & agency in their careers. You’ll learn how to go beyond the basic principles of design and get a seat at the table:

1. The three pillars of value-based design, and how they fit into your existing design practice.
2. How to identify & suggest one-off improvements to fix errors & plug revenue leaks.
3. How to analyze heat & scroll maps to make high-leverage design decisions.
4. How to run usability tests to identify significant errors in a product.
5. How to prioritize a series of design decisions such that they possess maximal strategic leverage for a business.
6. How to run & analyze experiments, including A/B tests.

These are the same processes that we at Draft have used repeatedly to grow businesses of all kinds, and we believe that they’re practicable by anyone, in any context, including & especially you.

You’ll also get a year of paid membership for free after you sign up, a $300 value.

Who am I?

I’m Nick Disabato, a designer & writer from the city of Chicago with 18 years of design experience. I run Draft, a small consultancy that is known for a deep focus on revenue generation through qualitative, value-based research.

Our third book, Value-Based Design, was released in 2019, and it represents the definitive conclusion of the “seat at the table” debate. Our latest book, Store Design, reinforces these ideas for online stores.

On top of all that, people seem to like us:

Nick has been AMAZING to work with. So knowledgeable and easy going. Suggests changes, implements them, and helps us grow our business. All the while being super communicative and easy to deal with. Can’t ask for more than that.

— Ezra Firestone, Smart Marketer

We have been using Draft for A/B testing the past 15 months, and I can easily, easily say that Nick’s work added an extra $100,000+ to our sales during that time.

— Andy Bedell, KeySmart

Nick has completely transformed the way our team looks at our website, and our culture around making website changes.

— Jeff Vogl, JBugs

Flying solo? Get the self-paced workshop.

If you’re an individual practitioner or want to test the waters with value-based design, our new self-paced workshop is perfect for you. Join us now & get lifetime access to the workshop, a membership for a year, and access to ask me anything about the course as you go through the lessons:

Get the Self-Paced Workshop →$300, cheap

Want to level up your whole team? Hire us for a day.

If you’re running a larger business and want us to present a custom-tailored form of this workshop to your team, or you want more hands-on guidance as you go through each lesson and learn how to radically shift your practice, you can reserve a full day for us to present remotely. We’ll work out a day within the next month after you’ve furnished payment.

The workshop itself will be five hours long, with a half-hour break for lunch in the middle. You’ll be able to ask questions anytime, custom-tailor the content to your own team, and you’ll also receive a lot more real-world examples. On top of all that, you’ll receive up to ten free memberships for your team, and we’ll ship all four of our books to up to ten team members, anywhere in the world.

Your investment for this workshop is $5,000. Reach out if you have any questions, or you can buy your workshop here:

Get the Value-Based Design Workshop for your team →$5,000, paid upfront

Note: the workshop must occur within a month of payment. Our fees are non-refundable. Please pay only when you’re for-sure ready to schedule with us.

Want us to deliver the Value-Based Design Workshop onsite? Get in touch and we’ll send along a rate sheet & next steps.

Do you still have any questions? That is reasonable! Get in touch. Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a great day.