Scaling Human-Centered Design at Capital One

Role: Director of Design Practices | Design Research & Operations

Duration: Initial assessment and impact delivered within ~3 months, with ongoing work extending across multiple quarters.

Led the strategy to assess and scale human-centered design practices across a 600+ person Experience Design organization at Capital One, establishing a structured approach to evaluate design quality, uncover systemic gaps, and drive more consistent product outcomes.

Key Outcomes

  • Established a scalable HCD assessment framework across 22 critical business experiences

  • Shifted design quality conversations from perception to evidence through structured evaluation

  • Identified systemic gaps in collaboration, ownership, and execution across teams

  • Enabled over 50% of teams to take action on identified opportunities

  • Achieved 82% satisfaction with the HCD review process

  • Created a foundation for improving design maturity and informing future investment

Challenge

Capital One had made a strong investment in human-centered design, supported across design, product, and engineering.

However, execution varied significantly across teams.

  • Teams interpreted HCD practices differently

  • Ownership across design and product was unclear

  • Collaboration models were inconsistent

  • The process felt complex and difficult to apply in real work

Even among top-priority business experiences, outcomes were uneven. The opportunity wasn’t to introduce design, but to make it work consistently at scale.

Approach

1. Establish a baseline grounded in real work

Partnered with executive design leaders to identify 22 key business experiences and conducted structured HCD assessments to understand how teams were actually operating.

This created a shared, evidence-based view of design performance across the organization.

2. Build a scalable assessment framework

Led the refinement of an HCD scorecard that:

  • Evaluated teams across each phase of the design process

  • Defined clearer criteria for assessing execution

  • Enabled more consistent evaluation across teams

  • Was designed to be reusable by teams over time

It provided a consistent way for teams to assess and strengthen their design practices over time.

3. Diagnose the underlying system, not just outputs

Through assessments and team interviews, we identified that performance differences were driven less by design capability and more by how teams operated.

Common patterns emerged:

Lower-performing teams

  • Hierarchical decision-making

  • Limited collaboration across functions

  • Focus on MVP delivery over experience quality

Higher-performing teams

  • Shared ownership across design, product, and engineering

  • Strong alignment and communication

  • Integrated decision-making throughout the process

This reframed the problem from a design issue to a systems and collaboration issue.

4. Drive alignment through leadership engagement

To move beyond assessment, I worked directly with executive design leaders across lines of business.

  • Conducted individual sessions to align on findings and priorities

  • Connected HCD improvements to business and product outcomes

  • Introduced a roadmap for scaling practices across the organization

This included:

  • A Product Delivery Blueprint to clarify roles and responsibilities

  • Expanded HCD resources and training

  • A plan for ongoing assessment and continuous improvement

Results

Immediate Impact (within 3 months)

  • 82% of teams rated the HCD reviews as helpful

  • 76% found the insights valuable

  • Over 50% of teams took direct action based on findings

Organizational Impact

  • Established a clearer, shared understanding of design quality across teams

  • Enabled teams to identify gaps in execution and collaboration

  • Highlighted and began addressing misalignment between design, product, and engineering

  • Increased confidence in how teams evaluate and improve their work

Strategic Impact

  • Introduced a structured, repeatable approach to assessing HCD practices

  • Shifted design from subjective feedback toward measurable evaluation

  • Positioned design as a stronger contributor to product and experience outcomes

  • Created a foundation for continued investment in design maturity and capability

Key Takeaways

  • Scaling design requires systems, not just standards

  • Collaboration is a primary driver of product quality

  • Leadership alignment is critical to sustained impact

  • Simplicity and clarity drive adoption more than process depth

What I’d Do Differently

  • Engage leadership earlier and more deeply across design and business partners

  • Start with teams open to change to demonstrate quick wins

  • Further simplify and tailor the HCD framework for easier adoption

  • Invest more in structured training and enablement

Because ultimately:

  • Progress depends less on defining the right process and more on driving alignment, adoption, and sustained behavior change

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