Design Satisfaction Index

The Problem We Didn't Know We Had

Everything seemed fine. Team meetings were positive. One-on-ones were good. Then our annual review came back: "Design team collaboration" scored 6/10.

That hurt. We thought we were doing great.

Worse, the comments were all over the place. "Too many meetings." "Not enough alignment." "Unclear priorities." "Great team!"

How do you fix something when you don't know what's broken?

Starting Simple

I started sending a monthly pulse check. Nothing fancy:

• How's your workload? (1-10)
• How's the work quality? (1-10)
• What's one thing we could improve?

Anonymous. Optional. Took 30 seconds.

First month: 40% response rate. Not great, but the comments were gold.

"Too many stakeholder reviews" "Brand guidelines are impossible to find" "Why do we have three design systems?"

Things nobody mentioned in meetings.

The Pattern Emerges

After six months, I could see trends:

Workload consistently around 7-8? Team's at capacity but managing. Drops to 5-6? Someone's either bored or overwhelmed. Quality scores below 7? Usually meant unclear requirements or too many cooks.

The comments section became a suggestion box that actually worked. "Need Figma licenses" — bought them. "Confusing file structure" — fixed it. "Too many Slack channels" — consolidated them.

Small fixes, but they added up.

Adding the Other Side

Started surveying stakeholders too:

• How clear are our deliverables?
• Are we solving the right problems?
• What's one thing we could do better?

First round was enlightening. We thought we were communicating well. They thought we were speaking a different language.

We'd send beautiful designs with no context. They wanted to know why we made certain choices.

Started including brief rationales. Scores improved. Meetings got shorter. Everyone won.

What Actually Changed

The survey didn't revolutionize anything. It just made problems visible before they got big.

Designer feeling overwhelmed? We'd know before they burned out. Stakeholder confused? We'd clarify before the project went sideways. Process broken? We'd fix it before everyone developed workarounds.

It's not dramatic. Nobody quit. No crisis was averted. Just steady improvements, month by month.

The Real Value

Most teams run on assumptions. "Everyone seems happy." "The process is working." "Communication is good."

The survey just checks if that's actually true.

Sometimes it confirms everything's fine. Sometimes it reveals small problems. Either way, you know.

One designer put it best: "It's nice that someone actually asks and then does something about it."

That's it. Ask, listen, act. Repeat monthly.