Are the inmates still running the asylum? – Webdagene 2016

Together with Webdagene, we held a panel debate at Mesh on in-house design teams versus external design agencies, as a follow-up to our joint panel the year before.

The title referred to Alan Cooper's 2004 book The Inmates Are Running the Asylum and asked whether the problem it described still holds. Some saw the growth of in-house design departments as a new high point for the discipline; others warned that design-driven cultures built on traditional business models and silos could fail and provoke a backlash.

Panelists Leah Buley, author of The User Experience Team of One, Erika Hall of Mule Design and Braden Kowitz of Google Ventures discussed whether in-house designers have the tools and processes to drive change or risk becoming institutionalised, and whether agencies will grow or decline as in-house capacity increases.

Speakers

• Leah Buley, Author of The User Experience Team of One
• Erika Hall, Mule Design
• Braden Kowitz, Google Ventures

The original event page is on meetup.com.