Make the Case: How to Present Design Ideas That Spark Action
Kai Wong
Medium's Top Design Writer. Educator.
Stop Making Design Suggestions. Start Making a Case for your Ideas.
You know what your organization should fix.
Maybe you've watched the same problem burn a team for months.
Maybe a competitor solved something you saw first.
You confident that it will make a difference.
You just have no idea how to say it so anyone acts.
You bring it up, and it lands as a suggestion. Suggestions don't get funded. It stays a note.
Same thing happens to work you've already done. You say "user friction," leadership hears "fix it later." Nothing changes.
This isn't a design problem. It's a translation problem.
It's why good ideas collect dust, and why strong designers get passed over while waiting for buy-in.
"Selling and advocating for design is 50 to 60% of a designer's job." — Director of UX, Ford
Make the Case gives you the frameworks to turn design decisions into the business outcomes leadership acts on, plus AI workflows so your evenings survive it.
Built from 13 years presenting design where UX wasn't valued. Pressure-tested with 32 leaders at Target, Ford, Mastercard, Meta, and Amazon.
8 sessions over 4 weeks. 60 minutes each, Mondays and Wednesdays.
By the end, you'll be able to make a case for action, whether it's a new design initiative or fixing issues.
What you’ll learn
Get buy-in for your ideas, whether it's about fixing problems or exploring new initiatives
Translate "better UX" and "less friction" into the metrics leadership tracks
Find the business outcome behind any design decision in five "so what?" steps
Use HEART to measure the user behavior that your design is supposed to drive
Define what success looks like with Goals-Signals-Metrics, before you design
Map which design screens actually affect the metric you're trying to move
Turn a gut feeling about your design into a testable prediction
Move up the Data Pyramid: from "3/5 users did X" to "users are doing Y, which is hurting metric Z"
Shape your finding to match what the PM, executive, or engineer actually needs from you
Answer "so what?" before anyone has to ask it
Generate multiple solution angles before committing to one
Estimate impact using benchmarks from comparable projects
Rank your hypotheses with ICE to pick Quick Wins over Strategic Bets
Make the business goal the main character, not yourself or the user
Build a throughline so every claim in your presentation follows from the last
Find the weak spots in your argument before stakeholders do
Frame an unrequested idea as a proposal worth exploring, not a demand for resources
Use Problem-Agitate-Solution to make your argument feel urgent, not just informative
Combine 2-3 methods (poor metrics, competitive gap, consequence of inaction) to land the urgency
Learn directly from Kai
Kai Wong
Medium's Top Design Writer. 13 Years Defending Design Where UX Wasn't Valued.
Who this course is for
Designers who want to use data to bypass office politics to start having a bigger impact
Designers ready to operate at the strategic level, using evidence to shape what gets built, not just how it looks
Designers sitting on an idea nobody asked for, who want a way to pitch it that doesn't sound like overstepping
What's included
Live sessions
Learn directly from 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
Your purchase is backed by the Maven Guarantee.
Course syllabus
12 live sessions • 36 lessons • 4 projects
Week 1
Aug
24
Workshop 1: Connect Design to Business Outcomes
Workshop 1 Lessons: Align with Product Goals
Aug
26
Workshop 2: Define Success Before You Design
Workshop 2 Lessons: Track Design impact on Business outcomes
Aug
28
Office Hours
Week 2
Aug
31
Workshop 3: Answer 'So What?' Before Anyone Asks
Workshop 3 Lessons: Identifying the core problem that matters to your audience
Sep
2
Workshop 4: Make the Problem Undeniable
Workshop 4 Lessons: Turn your Core Challenge into Data Visualizations
Sep
4
Office Hours
Schedule
Live sessions
2 hrs / week
Mon, Aug 24
6:30 PM—7:30 PM (UTC)
Wed, Aug 26
6:30 PM—7:30 PM (UTC)
Fri, Aug 28
3:30 PM—4:00 PM (UTC)
Projects
1 hr / week
The exercises help create a final project, which is an effective Data Story draft presentation
Async content
1 hr / week
Follow along with not only pre-recorded videos, but concept cards and templates as well
Testimonials
"Kai brought structure and clarity to our transformation stories — distilling complex, multi-layered design challenges into simple, human narratives that reveal how design drives real organisational change."
Jean-Baptiste Kaloya
VP, Product Design at BPIFrance
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