Data Informed Design: How to Show The Strategic Impact of Design Work

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4 Weeks

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Cohort-based Course

Stop being the 'Figma person.' Learn to measure design impact, translate design into business value, and become a strategic partner.

Clients include

Designlab Learning
Northrop Grumman
Social Security
Intuit
National Cancer Institute

Course overview

Tired of your design work being seen as just 'making things pretty'?

You're talented. Your designs solve real problems.


So why does leadership treat you like the "Figma person"?


Because you're not translating your design work into terms your business understands.


Your stakeholders don't see the connection between your thoughtful design decisions and the business outcomes they care about.


When you present user research findings, they're trying to figure out how to make multi-million dollar decisions around it.


When you present design recommendations, they want to know why it's worth the time and resources.


It's not that your design work doesn't create business value.


It's that you're not measuring and communicating that value in terms your audience understands.


Without this ability:

You'll stay excluded from strategic decisions: You'll watch as others make bad user decisions while you're forced to execute on bad ideas.

Your best ideas will get dismissed: Because stakeholders don't see the business impact until it's too late

You'll remain the "Figma person": When you're seen as tactical rather than strategic, you get treated (and paid) like a commodity

Your expertise gets undervalued: As leadership questions the ROI of design work and whether you can be replaced by AI


The solution isn't working harder. It's learning to work with the data your business already has.


Every other department leader collects data to measure progress, quantify outcomes, and justify their value.


That's how they're seen as a strategic partner instead of a commodity.


Why not you?


As multiple Design Leaders have told me, "The difference between okay and great designers is that great ones bring data and a package that helps sell the idea they've created."


This course is how you create that package.


When you master Data-Informed Design, you'll:

Get invited to strategy meetings: because you bring measurable insights about how design impacts business outcomes

Gain immediate credibility: Using data from tools your company already has to generate actionable business insights

Become a strategic partner: by proving your designs drive business results with rapid hypothesis validation

Earn the recognition you deserve: as someone who understands both design and business, and can leverage AI to communicate value at the speed leadership expects


You don't need an MBA or advanced analytics training.

You need a systematic framework to measure design impact, validate your hypotheses from multiple stakeholder perspectives, and translate it all into compelling business narratives.


This 4-week program transforms overlooked designers into data-informed strategic partners:

Week 1: Align design with Product Goals and Track the Value of Design Work

Week 2: Define the current problem that matters to audiences, and turn it into a Data Visualization

Week 3: Validate your proposed Design Solution from UX and PM perspectives using AI

Week 4: Package everything into persuasive 5-minute business presentations


Limited to 15 students for personalized 1:1 coaching.


Training Your Team? Email kai@datainformeddesign.online for bulk pricing and personalized cohorts.

Who is this course for

01

Designers who want to use data to bypass office politics and prove their value immediately

02

Designers tired of watching 'strategic' roles like PMs get promoted while their insights are ignored

03

Designers in low-UX maturity environments where relationship-building isn't enough

04

Mid-level designers whose great ideas get dismissed by skeptical executives

What you'll walk away with

Data-Informed frameworks that make even skeptical stakeholders approve your designs

Have clear frameworks to immediately show your design impact in meetings, presentations, performance reviews, and interviews.

ROI experiments that prove your design value in business outcomes, not opinions

Stop talking in hypotheticals and opinions. Show experiments that prove your design value in business outcomes

Templates to turn any design project into a compelling business case study

Not sure how to talk about your design work in an effective way? You'll get templates that provide you with step-by-step instructions

Scripts to present user research that gets immediate executive buy-in

Not sure what to say when talking with decision-makers or executives? You'll get scripts to help you in crucial situations

60 minutes of 1:1 Data-Informed Design coaching

You won't just learn theoretical concepts. You'll learn how to apply it to your work with 1:1 coaching with a Data-Informed Design expert.

What’s included

Christopher Kai Wong

Live sessions

Learn directly from Christopher Kai Wong in a real-time, interactive format.

Lifetime access

Go back to course content and recordings whenever you need to.

Community of peers

Stay accountable and share insights with like-minded professionals.

Certificate of completion

Share your new skills with your employer or on LinkedIn.

Maven Guarantee

This course is backed by the Maven Guarantee. Students are eligible for a full refund up until the halfway point of the course.

Course syllabus

12 live sessions • 30 lessons • 5 projects

Week 1

Sep 15—Sep 21

    Sep

    15

    Workshop 1: Align Design with Product Goals to start having an impact

    Mon 9/154:00 PM—5:00 PM (UTC)

    Workshop 1 Lessons: Align with Product Goals

    4 items

    Sep

    18

    Workshop 2: Want to talk about the Value of Design? Track Business Outcomes

    Thu 9/184:00 PM—5:00 PM (UTC)

    Workshop 2 Lessons: Track Design impact on Business outcomes

    5 items

    Sep

    19

    Office Hours

    Fri 9/193:30 PM—4:00 PM (UTC)
    Optional

Week 2

Sep 22—Sep 28

    Sep

    22

    Workshop 3: The most important question to answer is "So What?"

    Mon 9/224:00 PM—5:00 PM (UTC)

    Workshop 3 Lessons: Identifying the core problem that matters to your audience

    4 items

    Sep

    25

    Workshop 4: Turn your Core Challenge into a Data Visualization

    Thu 9/254:00 PM—5:00 PM (UTC)

    Workshop 4 Lessons: Turn your Core Challenge into Data Visualizations

    5 items

    Sep

    26

    Office Hours

    Fri 9/263:30 PM—4:00 PM (UTC)
    Optional

Week 3

Sep 29—Oct 5

    Sep

    29

    Workshop 5: Create Design Hypotheses to turn Recommendations into Solutions

    Mon 9/294:00 PM—5:00 PM (UTC)

    Workshop 5 Lessons: Creating Evidence-based Design Recommendations

    3 items

    Oct

    2

    Workshop 6: Test (and validate) your solutions working with an AI PM Second Brain

    Thu 10/24:00 PM—5:00 PM (UTC)

    Workshop 6 Lessons: Understand your boss with "PM" second brains

    5 items

    Oct

    3

    Office Hours

    Fri 10/33:30 PM—4:00 PM (UTC)
    Optional

Week 4

Oct 6—Oct 12

    Oct

    6

    Workshop 7: How successful companies sell their ideas (and the 4 mistakes designers make)

    Mon 10/64:00 PM—5:00 PM (UTC)

    Workshop 7 lessons: Structure Your UX Story

    4 items

    Oct

    9

    Workshop 8: Create a 5-minute, strategic presentation

    Thu 10/94:00 PM—5:00 PM (UTC)

    Workshop 8 Lessons: Deliver Your 5-Minute Strategic Presentation

    4 items

    Oct

    10

    Office Hours 4

    Fri 10/103:30 PM—4:00 PM (UTC)
    Optional

Bonus

    Apply these methods to your work with a 60 min coaching call

    1 item

What students are saying

Meet your instructor

Christopher Kai Wong

Christopher Kai Wong

Top Design Writer on Medium (325+ design articles). Data-Informed Design Expert.

Kai has over a decade of UX experience in data-centric fields like Healthcare, Federal, and B2B/SaaS UX. His designs have impacted millions of vulnerable populations, including patients, senior citizens, and medical professionals.


He has often worked as UX team of one, communicating the value of UX to teams and organizations that may not fully understand. As a result, he has learned better, more effective communication by understand effective data-focused viewpoints.

A pattern of wavy dots

Join an upcoming cohort

Data Informed Design: How to Show The Strategic Impact of Design Work

September Cohort

$599

Dates

Sep 15—Oct 12, 2025

Payment Deadline

Sep 14, 2025

October Cohort

$599

Dates

Oct 13—Nov 9, 2025

Payment Deadline

Oct 12, 2025

November Cohort

$599

Dates

Nov 10—Dec 7, 2025

Payment Deadline

Nov 9, 2025
Get reimbursed

Course schedule

3-5 hours per week

  • Mondays and Thursday

    12:00-1:00 PM EST

    I will have live lectures with Q&A, reviewing this week's lessons. These will also be where I review student's exercise and provide live feedback

  • Pre-recorded lectures

    1-2 hours per week

    In these lectures, I'll dive into the specifics around Data, Narrative, Visuals, and more. This will be a more detailed videos on the stuff I cover live on Mondays and Fridays

  • Weekly projects and exercises

    2 hours per week

    These exercises, paired with the lecture, will help you practice the concepts you learn from lectures

Free resource

White paper: How 15 Global Design Leaders are Thriving in 2025

I interviewed 15 Global Design Leaders about how to thrive in 2025, when Designers are increasingly asked to show their value.


How are some designers thriving, and what they doing? You can read about it here.


Ready to learn how to apply these patterns of success at work? Enroll in the course to learn how.

Get the white paper

Learning is better with cohorts

Learning is better with cohorts

Active hands-on learning

This course builds on live workshops and hands-on projects

Interactive and project-based

You’ll be interacting with other learners through breakout rooms and project teams

Learn with a cohort of peers

Join a community of like-minded people who want to learn and grow alongside you

Frequently Asked Questions

A pattern of wavy dots

Join an upcoming cohort

Data Informed Design: How to Show The Strategic Impact of Design Work

September Cohort

$599

Dates

Sep 15—Oct 12, 2025

Payment Deadline

Sep 14, 2025

October Cohort

$599

Dates

Oct 13—Nov 9, 2025

Payment Deadline

Oct 12, 2025

November Cohort

$599

Dates

Nov 10—Dec 7, 2025

Payment Deadline

Nov 9, 2025
Get reimbursed

$599

USD

·

4 Weeks