The Strategic Designer: Become a Valuable Asset With Data-Backed Design Choices

4.7 (8)

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4 Weeks

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Cohort-based Course

Connect design to business goals, manage stakeholders with clarity, and lead with a stronger, more strategic voice.

Clients include

Designlab Learning
Northrop Grumman
Social Security
Intuit
National Cancer Institute

Course overview

Feeling undervalued? Ideas getting ignored? Design presentations falling flat?

Your design ideas are worth a promotion. The problem is that your promotion is probably going to someone else.


Why? Because others aren't buying into your ideas.


Your designs might be good (or even great), but if you can't convince your stakeholders, it doesn't matter.

Great UX will be overlooked, deprioritized, or even dismissed in favor of what's easier in the moment.


Sound familiar? It's because you aren't tying your design to business outcomes. If executives don't see the business value, they won't invest in it.


If you struggle to communicate the business impact of your designs:


 • Your best ideas will get deprioritized or shelved, limiting the impact you have to make a difference

 • You’ll have to constantly justify your role and fight for recognition, while others (who 'speak business') will get promotions and raises

 • Your career will hit a wall, because businesses only invest in designers that demonstrate measurable outcomes

 • Your job security becomes uncertain, because your contributions aren't directly tied to business results.


With AI tools commoditizing basic design skills and layoffs targeting 'nice-to-have' roles, designers who can't prove business impact are at risk.


As one design leader said, "The Difference Between Good and Great Designers is that Great Ones can Use Data to Sell your Ideas."


In 2025, top companies aren't hiring Good Designers. They're hiring Great Ones, that know how to communicate how design impacts business outcomes.


Design Professionals who can do that jump to the top of the priority list.


When you become a designer that communicates how design affects business outcomes, you'll:


 • Use concrete numbers to bypass office politics and skeptical stakeholders

 • Consistently secure stakeholder buy-in, making your design initiatives a top priority.

 • Have Influence with executives and cross-functional partners who value clear ROI and measurable outcomes.

 • Get the promotions and salary increases you deserve by proving your designs drive measurable business results


This intensive program transforms overlooked designers into strategic business partners in just 4 weeks.


Spots are capped at 15 students to provide every student with 1:1 time.


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Training Your Team?

Email kai@datainformeddesign.online for bulk pricing and personalized course options.

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 • 79 lessons • 8 projects

Week 1

Jul 28—Aug 3

    Jul

    28

    Workshop 1: How aligning design with business makes better products faster

    Mon 7/284:00 PM—5:00 PM (UTC)

    📚 Workshop 1 Lessons: Design what businesses need

    7 items

    Aug

    1

    Workshop 2: How to track Design Impact on Business Outcomes

    Fri 8/14:00 PM—5:00 PM (UTC)

    📚 Workshop 2 Lessons: Track Design impact on Business outcomes

    7 items

    🔍Extended Learning and Templates

    6 items

    Aug

    1

    Office Hours

    Fri 8/15:00 PM—5:30 PM (UTC)
    Optional

Week 2

Aug 4—Aug 10

    Aug

    4

    Workshop 3: Understanding what data your team needs to know

    Mon 8/44:00 PM—5:00 PM (UTC)

    📚 Workshop 3 Lessons: What does the business need to prioritize?

    8 items

    Aug

    8

    Workshop 4: Analyzing user insights and finding evidence for your recommendations

    Fri 8/84:00 PM—5:00 PM (UTC)

    📚 Workshop 4 Lessons: Turning Knowledge into design recommendations

    8 items

    Aug

    8

    Office Hours

    Fri 8/85:00 PM—5:30 PM (UTC)
    Optional

    🔍Extended Learning and Templates

    3 items

Week 3

Aug 11—Aug 17

    Aug

    11

    Workshop 5: Building a second brain with AI

    Mon 8/114:00 PM—5:00 PM (UTC)

    📚 Workshop 5 Lessons: Improve your design process with an AI second brain

    9 items

    Aug

    15

    Workshop 6: Building second brains to empathize with your team

    Fri 8/154:00 PM—5:00 PM (UTC)

    📚 Workshop 6 Lessons: Empathize with decision makers through AI second brains

    9 items

    Aug

    15

    Office Hours

    Fri 8/155:00 PM—5:30 PM (UTC)
    Optional

    🔍Extended Learning and Templates

    2 items

Week 4

Aug 18—Aug 24

    Aug

    18

    Workshop 7: Craft your Perfect Data Visualization Hook

    Mon 8/184:00 PM—5:00 PM (UTC)

    📚 Workshop 7 Lessons: Turn your Insights into Data Visualizations

    9 items

    Aug

    22

    Workshop 8: Building a UX Story through frameworks

    Fri 8/224:00 PM—5:00 PM (UTC)

    📚 Workshop 8 Lessons: UX Storytelling: How to persuade your team to take action

    8 items

    Aug

    22

    Office Hours 4

    Fri 8/225:00 PM—5:30 PM (UTC)
    Optional

    🔍Extended Learning and Templates

    10 items

Bonus

    Book a 1:1 call with me

    1 item

4.7 (8 ratings)

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

The Strategic Designer: Become a Valuable Asset With Data-Backed Design Choices

August Cohort

$599

Dates

July 28—Aug 24, 2025

Payment Deadline

July 27, 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

Learn how to turn down requests from executives without running into trouble.

Many designers don't know how to say no, which leads to trouble. When an executive comes by with a half-baked idea, it isn't easy to know what to say.


This is a script that I've used to politely refuse requests with data without running into issues getting fired.


Want to know how you can use it in with your work? Enroll today.

Get this free resource

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

The Strategic Designer: Become a Valuable Asset With Data-Backed Design Choices

August Cohort

$599

Dates

July 28—Aug 24, 2025

Payment Deadline

July 27, 2025
Get reimbursed

$599

4.7 (8)

·

4 Weeks