UX Camp Winter 2026
You Can’t Wireframe Culture, But You Can Design It!
Have you ever logged into work and felt like something was off — like the vibes used to be better, but you couldn’t quite put your finger on why? Culture is one of those things everyone talks about, but no one quite knows how to improve. You can’t wireframe it. You can’t QA it. But I believe you can research and design it.
In this talk, I’ll share how I applied UX methods to my own design organization — starting with an org-wide Listening Tour and evolving it into a UX-specific mentorship pilot. We started with survey data, but realized it wasn’t granular enough. By running retrospective-style workshops across the org and synthesizing hundreds of insights, we were able to get to the core of what designers were really struggling with: connection, visibility, career clarity, and the feeling that we couldn’t consistently do high-quality work with real impact.
From there, I designed and led our first UX mentorship program, built like a product, designed for iteration and scale, and eventually adopted as an ongoing initiative. I’ll share what worked, what surprised me, and a practical playbook attendees can take back to their own teams to empower individual contributors, unlock unconventional leadership, and make culture something you actually design, not just talk about.
