This case study describes a design basics class that taught design to a thousand non-designers in a corporation, in 10 different cities across six countries, all in just one year.

The paper will explore how a multi-national software company with more than 22,000 engineers, operating in multiple cities around the world, created a design basics class for all employees to learn and practice design in their daily jobs. The case study offers insights on how companies can educate non-designers, who comprise 99% of the organization in question, on user experience design and make design everyone’s responsibility in the company. It enables design educators to create educational programs that take the principles of design beyond the confines of design teams to the entire organization.

In many large companies, people confuse design as meaning solely how things look, not how they work. But when people are taught design, they start “noticing” that design influences how their product works. By noticing design, they become aware that whatever role they play across engineering, product management, quality control or sales, they can apply design principles to build better products that meet their users’ needs.