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I make things that advocate for good design.

Alison headshot
When working as a digital product designer, or a design team leader, frequent sacrifices end up being made in the spirit of Agile delivery, teamwork, and experimentation. 

Perfection is one.   Idealism is another.   Fulfillment and self worth... do they have to go too?

Processing my own tech worker burnout has helped me put into words the whys of some of the most frequent Design-Product, Design-Developer, Design-{Stakeholder} breakdowns.

So far I've given talks like "How to Support Your Designer", "Finding The Causal Why", and "Design Thinking for Business".   This is just the beginning.  I am in the process of researching and writing my first book, creating my first course, and developing a membership community for design thinkers and innovators. 

 

"Design = Intentionality During the Act of Creation"
- Alison Ostendorf

So what am I working on now?

Why Why Matters, a book

In this book, I will take a data-driven approach to advocate for the value of designing to the causal Why.

Often in teams with limited resources (which is nearly every team), the investment in Design Thinking takes a back seat to quick implementations of revenue-driving features.

This happens because the data around the feature need is readily accessible to Product, but the data supporting the "better" design doesn't even exist until the design work is done, and even then, it's hard to actually measure.I intend to surface some of this data, and help designers advocate for quality, with revenue-related numbers instead of hypothesis.

Why Why Matters book concept
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Design Leadership training

An original training built for modern Design Leaders.

The course focuses on topics like how to think about time when working in a creative team, how and why to lead design thinking in the direction of pure thinking, and what kinds of designers to hire for what roles.

Some highlights of the training include:

- Awareness of kairos versus chronos time, to create reliability in delivery date while also allowing for the creative process

- Getting to the Causal Why of a design requirement, and how we relate to Product Managers and Developers while doing so

- How to coach a team of designers while nourishing each team member's individual mind and career goals

Co-founder of an automation and AI tooling agency

As technical co-founder of Revenue Lions, a consulting agency that specializes in revenue-focused automations and AI tool integration for mid-sized companies, I work to build a business that runs itself.

We lean into the AI revolution on behalf of our clients, so that they can continue to focus on their unique market offering, rather than on keeping up with a rapidly evolving tech stack.

Revenue Lions home page 2025

Original Content

Podcast

Appearance on S1E17 of the Product Led Growth Leaders podcast

Hosted by Thomas Watkins, we discuss how design philosophy impacts Product-Led Growth (PLG).

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Article
10 Steps Toward Designing The Right Product

Follow these 10 steps in order to easily move through the new product delivery process.

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Article
Categories of UX Design Tips

"UX feedback" isn't one type of thing.  How do you know if you've gone through "enough" feedback?

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Checklist
Web Design Best Practices Checklist

Use this checklist when building a new website, especially if for some reason you still build by...

A good Product leader incorporates Design thinking whenever intentional creation is needed. Which is at the beginning.