Why Design Literacy Matters

You've been there. The painful meeting where your carefully crafted design gets misinterpreted. Your engineering team asks basic questions about UI components. Your product manager doesn't grasp the user journey. Your marketing team uses inconsistent design terms.

You have two choices:

  1. Keep explaining the same concepts repeatedly, watching deadlines slip and quality suffer
  2. Build true design literacy across your organization so everyone speaks the same language

Organizations with shared design literacy ship products faster, have fewer misunderstandings, and create more cohesive user experiences. When engineers understand design systems, when product managers grasp usability principles, and when marketers align with your visual language, magic happens.

This playbook shows how design managers can use Uxcel Teams to create this shared understanding, turning design literacy from a nice-to-have into a competitive advantage.

What You'll Need

To follow this playbook and boost design literacy in your organization, you'll need:

Uxcel Teams Account with:

  • Uxcel Squads feature (for organizing cross-functional teams)
  • Uxcel Skill Mapping (to identify knowledge gaps)
  • Uxcel Assignments (to create custom learning paths)
  • Uxcel Learning (access to courses like Design Terminology, UI Components, etc.)

You'll also need:

  • Buy-in from department heads (engineering, product, marketing)
  • 30 minutes to set up your initial structure
  • 15-20 minutes weekly to track progress and adjust

No prior teaching experience needed. Uxcel handles the educational content while you focus on implementation.

Step 1: Map Current Design Knowledge Gaps

Before you can build design literacy, you need to know where the gaps are. Different teams have different blind spots when it comes to design understanding.

1. Identify key teams that interact with design

  1. Engineering team (who builds your designs)
  2. Product team (who define requirements for your designs)
  3. Marketing team (who communicate about your designs)

2. Invite team members and assign Uxcel Pulse

  1. Go to Members Tab
  2. Use the Invite Member button to invite your team members
  3. By default, as you invite your team members, Uxcel Pulse will be automatically assigned to them
  4. Explain why this matters and how it will help them to gain participation

3. Get your team members to complete the Uxcel Pulse

  1. Go to Reporting Tab
  2. See who has already completed Uxcel Pulse and gain insights into their Skill Graph
  3. Gently nudge the ones who did not complete Uxcel Pulse

4. Review existing skill gaps and strengths

  1. In the reporting page, see where your team and individuals currently stand
  2. Navigate to the Activity Feed and look for Uxcel Pulse completions
  3. Access each completion report
  4. Analyze the current skill gaps and strengths
  5. Dive into the answers to uncover sub-skills that need to be improved.

💡 Feature Highlight: Uxcel Skill Mapping

The Skill Mapping tool automatically visualizes strengths and gaps across teams. It shows how different departments compare in areas like UI terminology, component knowledge, and design principles understanding.

Pro Tip: Share anonymous, aggregated results with all teams to create transparency and motivation. This builds buy-in for the next steps.

Expected Outcome: Clear understanding of which design concepts each team struggles with, allowing you to create targeted learning paths rather than generic design training.

Step 2: Create Targeted Learning Squads

Now that you know where the knowledge gaps are, it's time to organize your teams into focused learning groups with Uxcel Squads.

1. Structure your squads strategically

  1. Go to Squads in your Uxcel Account
  2. Click Create New Squad
  3. Choose between department-based squads (e.g., Engineering, Product) or cross-functional squads based on projects

2. Add members to each squad

  1. Go to Members tab
  2. Find specific team members you'd like to add to their respective squads
  3. Add them to a specific Squad from the dropdown menu
  4. Consider adding 1-2 design team members to each squad as design champions

3. Set squad learning goals

  1. Create 2-3 clear goals based on the knowledge gaps you identified (e.g. Engineering team will understand design system component terminology by end of Q2)
  2. Share the goals within your internal communication tool (e.g. Slack or MS Teams) and get everyone on the same page
  3. Schedule weekly catch-up meetings to understand their progress.

💡 Feature Highlight: Uxcel Squads

Squads aren't just groups. They're learning communities with their own progress tracking, communication tools, and achievement badges. Squad members can see how they're doing compared to squad averages.

Pro Tip: Create a bit of friendly competition by showing progress across squads on a shared dashboard. Nothing motivates engineers like seeing the marketing team ahead of them in design knowledge!

Expected Outcome: Organized structure for learning that fits into existing team dynamics, with clear accountability and goals for each group.

Step 3: Assign Custom Learning Paths

With your squads set up, it's time to create tailored learning experiences for each team based on their specific needs and knowledge gaps. There are multiple ways that you can utilize Assignments to develop mission-critical product and design skills. Here are two besto ptions on how you can utilize Assignments the best way possible

1. Assign learning materials based on skill gaps

  1. Go to Reporting Tab
  2. Select the squad that you want to focus on
  3. Click on a specific skill category (e.g. Product Thinking and User Research)
  4. Open a list of specific learning materials that are tailored for these skills
  5. Click on the course and start assigning them.
  6. For engineering teams: Focus on UI Components 1 & UI Components 2 and Design Terminology
  7. For product teams: Focus on Design Thinking and Service Design
  8. For marketing teams: Focus on Design Compositions and Design Terminology

2. Assign learning materials based on team needs

  1. Go to Assignments Tab
  2. Click Create assignment
  3. Select learning materials and set reasonable deadlines
  4. Start with small modules (15-20 minutes each)

3. Set learning schedule

  1. Recommend 2-3 short sessions per week
  2. Integrate with existing team meetings when possible. Example: "15 minutes of design learning before weekly sprint planning"

4. Provide context for learning

  1. Connect learning to current projects
  2. Provide context to your respective teams in order to increase engagement. Example: "This UI Components course will help us speak the same language during our upcoming dashboard redesign"

💡 Feature Highlight: Uxcel Assignments

Assignments aren't just course recommendations. They're structured learning paths with progress tracking, deadline reminders, and completion certificates that integrate with your company's professional development systems.

Pro Tip: Block 15-30 minutes on team calendars specifically for design learning. Treat it as protected time, just like you would for any other critical skill development.

Expected Outcome: Structured learning paths that address specific knowledge gaps without overwhelming team members, integrated into existing workflows.

Step 4: Track Progress and Apply Learning

Learning only matters if it changes how teams work together. This step focuses on measuring progress and—more importantly—applying new design knowledge to real projects.

1. Monitor completion and assessment scores

  1. Go to Assignments Tab
  2. Check the progress of your ongoing assignments weekly
  3. Dive into individual progress to understand how you can support them thebestway possible.
  4. Review completion rates by squad

2. Create application opportunities

  1. Schedule design terminology standups where teams use new terms
  2. Add a design literacy check to code reviews
  3. Have non-designers explain design decisions using proper terminology

3. Document improved communication

  1. Record meetings before and after training
  2. Note reduced questions and confusion
  3. Track time spent on design handoffs

4. Celebrate and recognize progress

  1. Use the Leaderboards feature to highlight top learners
  2. Share wins in company meetings
  3. Connect improved design literacy to business outcomes

💡 Feature Highlight: Skill Growth Over Time

The Skill Growth Over Time shows real-time improvement across teams. Watch as terminology gaps close and confidence scores increase after each completed learning module.

Pro Tip: Create a simple "design terminology guide" that teams can reference during meetings. Update it with new terms as everyone learns, creating a living document of your shared design language.

Expected Outcome: Measurable improvement in cross-team communication, faster handoffs between design and development, and fewer revisions due to misunderstandings.

Real-World Impact

When organizations build strong design literacy, the results go beyond just better communication. Let's look at how Brivo transformed their approach to design with Uxcel Teams.

Case Example: Brivo Security Systems

As the global leader in cloud-based physical access control security, Brivo faced a critical challenge. Their interfaces needed to be exceptionally intuitive despite the sophisticated security technology underneath. But their approach to design education was fragmented, with team members using different learning sources and no way to track skill development.

After implementing Uxcel Teams:

Transformation in Team Dynamics

  • The team developed a shared design language that made their design system patterns more cohesive
  • Weekly meetings now include learning insights from Uxcel, creating a transparent knowledge-sharing environment
  • Designers who once viewed learning as an obligation now actively challenge each other and celebrate skill achievements

Organizational Evolution

  • UX considerations now influence product strategy from the very beginning
  • Cross-functional teams proactively seek design input
  • Executive leadership views design capabilities as a competitive advantage in the security technology marketplace

Design Process Improvements

  • Completion rates for learning materials increased dramatically
  • Implementation of design patterns became more efficient
  • Project teams are now assembled based on complementary skills identified through Uxcel's Team Skill Graph
"By implementing Uxcel Teams, we've transformed not just our design team's capabilities, but our entire organization's approach to creating value through exceptional user experiences. In a complex technology space where ease of use directly impacts security outcomes, this transformation delivers tangible benefits for both our business and the millions who rely on our solutions daily." — Steve Arrington, Director of Product Design at Brivo

Implementation Guide

Ready to boost design literacy across your organization? Here's a practical timeline to get you started:

Week 1: Setup and Assessment

  • Create your squad structure
  • Run initial design literacy assessments
  • Share results and get buy-in

Weeks 2-4: Foundations

  • Begin with Design Terminology courses for all teams
  • Focus on terms used most frequently in your organization
  • Short, 15-minute learning sessions 3x per week

Weeks 5-8: Team-Specific Learning

  • Engineering: UI Components and Design Systems
  • Product: Design Thinking and User Flows
  • Marketing: Visual Design Principles and Brand Systems

Weeks 9-12: Application

  • Implement design terminology standups
  • Create shared glossaries
  • Begin measuring impact on workflows

Common Challenges and Solutions:

  • Low completion rates? Try learning "buddies" and friendly competition
  • Trouble applying concepts? Create cheat sheets for common meetings
  • Busy schedules? Integrate learning into existing meetings rather than adding new ones

Wrapping Up

Building design literacy isn't just about teaching non-designers some terminology. It's about creating a unified language that powers better products, smoother processes, and stronger teams.

By using Uxcel Teams to map skills, organize squads, assign targeted learning, and track progress, you can transform how your organization thinks about and works with design.

The result? Faster handoffs. Clearer communication. Fewer revisions. Better products.

Ready to build your organization's shared design language? Request a Uxcel Teams demo today.