By Design: Challenging the Premise of Design Thinking with Taylor Rosenbauer

Taylor is the founder and chief executive officer at RocketAir, a global design and strategy firm. RocketAir has created award-winning digital experiences and digital products for enterprises and start-ups such as BlockFi, Coursera, QED, Software, SECLOCK, Olive, Stryx, and more. Taylor is an expert in product strategy, UX/UI design, and motion design. He began his career as a filmmaker and influencer during the early days of YouTube, and has worked with clients such as Disney, Mattel, Conde Nast, Citrix, and Seamless. His work has been featured by CNBC, MTV, and Ad Age.

LBB> Tell us about your current role and design specialism(s)?

Taylor> I’m the founder and CEO of RocketAir, a global design and strategy firm. 

We’re a team of problem-solvers who create branded digital experiences that are led by strategy, centred around people, and built for scale. It’s how we help companies win by design. Our specialties include product strategy, UX/UI design, motion design, and branding. 

LBB> What drew you to design in the first place and how has your design career evolved?

Taylor> My path was a bit unconventional. I’m not a classically trained designer and am mostly self-taught. 

I started out as a filmmaker in my teens. A skateboarding injury led me to discover finger boarding just as YouTube was starting out. I made a video of my finger boarding tricks, it went viral, and things took off. My YouTube channel gained more than 30,000 followers, my finger boarding was featured in a music video, and I sold a show called 'FingerTips' to Disney.

So, although I majored in philosophy and political science in college - with the intentions of going to law school - I decided to take a bet on my creative passion. My first job out of school was as a video producer and motion designer at a social media agency. Then I joined a fintech start up to lead their graphic design and video content, and eventually their product design. All the while, I was freelancing on the side, fuelling my obsession with design. When I started winning big clients, I realised it was time to turn that into a company, RocketAir. 

LBB> What aspects of design do you get really nerdy about personally?

Taylor> I’m fascinated by design systems and prototyping. I care a lot about how design can help companies solve problems like bridging the gap between designers and developers or minimising ‘design debt.’

I also get excited about designing products with their own personality that’s instantly recognisable and sets them apart. Helping companies find that distinctive expression of their brand and bringing it to life across a digital experience is one of the primary reasons clients work with RocketAir. 

LBB> There are so many new design tools out there - what tools do you like to use and why? (whether digital platforms or old fashioned pen and paper!)

Taylor> Loom is one of my favourite tools for collaboration. RocketAir has a four-day workweek, which means we’ve had to find ways to increase efficiency and cut down on meetings. Loom helps us communicate asynchronously with each other across different time zones and working hours. 

RocketAir is a Webflow Enterprise Partner, and we’re major fans of their platform. We can easily go from custom design to development with a design system-based approach. It’s our go-to platform for creating modern website experiences for our clients.

And then when I’m wearing my design hat, I love working with Principle to create hi-fidelity prototypes. As an animator by trade, I also love After Effects. 

LBB> Design Thinking - thoughts?

Taylor> The ethos of RocketAir is to challenge the premise of design thinking. Design thinking posits a prescriptive, step-by-step process, which implies that anyone can be a designer. But we believe that design is not a single, rigid, repeatable process. For instance, you wouldn’t necessarily go about designing a solution for a startup the same way you would for a Fortune 500 enterprise.

We subscribe to a more adaptive approach, which we call Orbital Design. It allows us to mould our design practices to the unique problem we’ve solving. It’s built around flexing to the realities of a messy world. We can pivot mid-way through a project to accommodate a new client need or apply a new insight. 

We work in two-week intervals called Orbits. These are non-stop cycles of iteration and feedback, whether that’s cross-functional peer reviews with our internal teams, client reviews, or user research. For example, when we partnered with Surf Internet on their new website, we took time after our initial UX planning work to conduct interviews with real customers so that we could validate assumptions and get new insights before determining the content strategy. 

LBB> What are the most persistent misconceptions about your particular design specialism that you see across the advertising and marketing landscape?

Taylor> UX and UI are often treated as separate disciplines, but my view is they’re inextricably connected. UX should inform UI, and vice versa. Let’s say you’re designing a website to meet accessibility criteria; those indicators affect the user experience, and what you’re experiencing at the right moment and the right time informs the user interface. I see too many companies set up separate departments for UX and UI, without the necessary cross-collaboration to create great products with heart and humanity. Great design is easy to use, so UX and UI must converge. I think a lot of companies are catching on to this, which is encouraging. 

LBB> Accessible design is an increasingly prominent topic - from your experience what are the most challenging facets of accessible design? And what does best practice in accessible design in your particular design specialism look like?

Taylor> Accessibility is good for business, period. It’s simple economics: the more accessible your product is, the more people can use it and the bigger your market becomes. 

Designers are critical thinkers and problem-solvers by nature. Empathy is how we design human experiences. Accessibility is really just an extension of what we already do and should be the industry standard. 

Consumers have high expectations for digital products to be accessible and too many brands still overlook that. Every single component must meet accessibility standards, not just the fonts and fundamentals. 

Something designers have to keep in mind is how even the slightest change to individual elements of a design system can affect the accessibility of the entire experience. Maybe you’re swapping in a different background image - go back and make sure the contrast ratios remain sound. The combination of all components is dynamic and must be audited for accessibility on an ongoing basis. 

We try to go above and beyond the standard accessibility criteria, making it really easy to give folks the tools they need to navigate a product. In addition to non-stop testing, we encourage our clients to set up communication channels specifically for users to share any accessibility issues. It’s a simple step that gives companies an opportunity to remedy the situation.

LBB> What design controversies or challenges do you find trickiest to navigate or do you find yourself thinking about most frequently?

Taylor> An overreliance on testing is a client challenge we’re often working through. For some clients, making and committing to design decisions can feel daunting or uncomfortable, so they might sit in the testing phase longer than necessary. Too much testing can often lead to too little decision-making and meaningful progress. Our team works with clients to help them find a balance and determine which elements are most valuable to test with real people, and which ones aren’t. The challenge is maintaining velocity in an Orbit while making data-driven decisions. We try to be very precise about what we test, and why, and create the right type of test to elicit the feedback that’s needed to drive the design process forward without decision paralysis getting in the way. 

LBB> How do you think about the ethics of design?

Taylor> Too many products today are filled with dark patterns, highly manipulative, and infringe on privacy. They seem to be built with the mindset of “how do I get people to do what I want them to do,” when they should be designed to be in service to people. 

People-first products are the ones that are winning. That’s why it’s critical to bring your audience into the design process and have them make decisions with you, rather than leaving it all to the company and its stakeholders. This is the entire reason why RocketAir exists and what we strive for on a daily basis, because we wholeheartedly believe that digital experiences should make a positive impact on peoples’ lives.

Design teams should be advocates for the audiences they’re designing for. Push back against the dark patterns that we see in the industry, like making it difficult to unsubscribe from a service. A lot of experiences are set up to take advantage. We as designers have the power to change that. 

LBB> What are some of your favourite examples of creative design solutions that inspire you?

Taylor> The best, most striking solutions are typically the simplest. For example, I was recently at a local coffee shop in town and my receipt included suggested tip amounts with the final tab calculated, instead of having an open space to add your own tip. All I had to do was check a box. It solves the friction of needing to do maths. That’s what it means to truly design experiences for people. 

LBB> Which design projects throughout your career have been the most satisfying to work on and why?

Taylor> This might be surprising, but some of my favourite projects have been with legacy companies that weren’t very design-forward or technologically advanced but wanted to be. Using design to bring them into the future and spring-boarding them far ahead of their competition is highly rewarding. It’s those moments when we apply design in unexpected places, like creating a best-in-class B2B e-commerce experience for a 40-year-old door hardware organisation, that truly underscore design as a competitive advantage. 

LBB> What’s going on at the moment in design that’s getting you particularly excited?

Taylor> There’s no denying the impact of AI in design. Like a lot of emerging technology over the years, AI has inspired a mixture of fear and excitement. But this isn’t the case of robots stealing jobs from humans. I believe that AI will actually make designers more valuable - their time will be spent on more meaningful, human work, while AI takes care of mundane, repetitive tasks. For example, there are best practices for design, which is where AI can create efficiencies with tasks like interface design. An AI engine can analyse and produce an interface for designers to start with and build on. The contribution of a human designer is vital for taking the framework set up by AI and turning it into a distinct experience that engages and inspires people. 

LBB> Who are your design heroes and why?

Taylor> Haraldur Thorleifsson, founder of Ueno. I’ve long admired his social impact, but recently became even more of a fan after he went toe-to-toe with Elon Musk. 

LBB> Thinking of people at the beginning of their career, what advice would you give them for navigating this constantly changing field?

Taylor> Never stop learning. Something I’ve learned from others and have experienced in my own career is the importance of staying curious. You’ll never know it all (none of us will), but the people who genuinely try to are the ones that will succeed. Experimenting with new tools like ChatGPT and learning new skills is the best investment you can make in yourself both personally and professionally. So much of what I know, I learned through YouTube tutorials and through trial and error. This advice applies to everyone, no matter where you are in your career journey.