How to Master the Invisible Work: Practical Tips and Insights to Build a Design Culture and Advance Your Career

1-Hour Master Class with Joyce Croft, Senior Lead Human-Centered Designer at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

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The hard part of a designer’s job is the people—people are involved in all parts of the process, which can be challenging, to say the least. With the rise of AI, advancements in technology, and setbacks from COVID-19, we are growing further away from each other. The ability to connect with others is needed more now than ever.

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Soft skills, not hard skills, are the solution to workplace success and career growth. As designers, we spend a lot of time learning how to use our design tools and methods, and little time learning crucial soft skills. In this Master Class with Joyce Croft, Senior Lead Human-Centered Designer at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, explore the soft skills like communication, influence, and empathy that are timeless, transferable and essential in today’s workplace.

You’ll learn:

What exactly empathy is and how to understand your users better.
How to be a leader to influence others and advance the design culture in your organization.
Practical tips and expert insights on how to build trust and great working relationships.

Through this entertaining and insightful Master Class, you’ll learn to empathize better with your stakeholders, build trusting relationships, get alignment and buy-in faster and be seen as a design leader in your organization. With Joyce’s how-to tips and real stories, you’ll learn that soft skills are the key to advancing design culture and your career.

Your Speaker and Industry Expert

Joyce Croft is a Senior Lead Human-Centered Designer at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. She is working to drive the success of human-centered design across the organization. As the Lead Designer for the Innovation Foundry Concept Office, Joyce’s positive energy brings people together to deliver valuable product solutions to JPL’s complex mission development processes and systems. She specializes in building trusting relationships that improve workplace culture and increase buy-in for design.

Before JPL, she worked as a multi-disciplinary designer in Silicon Valley in startups and Fortune 500 companies. As Head of Design at PagerDuty, Joyce led a successful rebrand that helped the company go public in April 2019. She received a US Patent for creating a component library for the cloud-based content authoring platform, Inkling Habitat™. As a Senior UX Designer at Google and Amazon, Joyce helped deliver consumer products, Google Play Instant Apps, and Amazon’s Visual Search to millions of users.

Joyce was a speaker at Figma’s Annual Conference, Config 2024. Her talk: "Design as therapy: emotional dynamics of aerospace engineering" continues to inspire thousands of people to build trust with stakeholders as a means to navigate challenging environments. Her mantra is "Return the gifts life has given to you" and because of this, she is a strong advocate of mentoring and coaching the next generation of designers. She has a BFA from SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design). You can access her work on her website and connect with her on Linkedin.

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Questions? We've Got Answers

Design skills are valuable for both you personally and for your company.

For you personally, design skills are important because:

Design roles are growing faster than average. The World Economic Forum ranks human-centered design among the fastest-growing skill areas through 2030.
Employers increasingly expect design skills across roles, not just from designers. Knowing design thinking, user research, or UX principles makes you more competitive in any field.
Designers who combine human-centered skills with AI expertise are in especially high demand.

For your company, design skills are important because:

Design skills help your team increase sales, retain customers, and improve customer satisfaction. Better customer experiences lead directly to better business results.
Companies that invest in design outperform the S&P 500 Index by 228% (Design Management Institute, Design Value Index).
Design is more than aesthetics. It's how teams make products easier to use, services more efficient, and technology more human. These skills create value across every department.

Design and tech skills can open up career opportunities.

For example, if you're in a field such as:

Marketing, communication, HR, software development, customer service, business management, healthcare, teaching, and many more.

Why can design skills make you valuable in these jobs and industries?

That's because:

Design skills help your team increase sales, retain customers, and improve customer satisfaction. Better customer experiences lead directly to better business results.
Companies that invest in design outperform the S&P 500 Index by 228% (Design Management Institute, Design Value Index).
Design is more than aesthetics. It's how teams make products easier to use, services more efficient, and technology more human. These skills create value across every department.

No.

Our courses, master classes, and career programs cover everything from the fundamentals to advanced topics.

Whether you're completely new to design or an experienced professional, you'll find courses, master classes and career programs at your level.

Yes.

After you finish, you'll receive an industry-recognized IxDF Certificate to prove you've completed an evidence-based curriculum taught by industry leaders.

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You can download your IxDF Certificates as .jpg files, so they are easy to share. IxDF Certificates are always valid.

Need more detailed instructions?

We can help you in several ways.

Join meetups in your city: Join the regular meetups in your city in a nearby cafe or office building to have fun and learn with people just like you. You get full access to IxDF Local Groups where you can build your network, find new opportunities, or simply enjoy yourself in the company of people who are passionate about design. The meetings are completely optional and are spread across app. 500 cities worldwide.

You can also get instant help and career advice in the IxDF online members-only forums. Here, you can build your global network through our supportive community.

Wonderful! When you sign up for a Master Class, you'll receive an email from us with a link to join the live Master Class.

If you can't find the email, please reach out to [email protected], and we're super happy to help you!

Great news! You'll also get an on-demand version of your Master Class a few hours after the live event ends.

A few days later, the on-demand Master Class will also show up on your private profile page if you're a member.

That way, you can view the Master Class on-demand at any time. As many times as you wish.

Absolutely!

When you sign up for a live Master Class, you'll automatically receive the link to the recording a few hours after the live event ends.

A few days later, the on-demand Master Class will show up on your private profile page if you're an IxDF member. If you're not a member, you'll receive your recording by email.

You can enjoy your Master Class on-demand at any time, anywhere. Watch it as many times as you want.

Great news! We've got you covered.

When you sign up for the live Master Class, you'll automatically receive the link to the recording a few hours after the live event ends.

A few days later, the on-demand Master Class will show up on your private profile page if you're an IxDF member. If you're not a member, you'll receive your recording by email.

You can enjoy your Master Class on-demand at any time, anywhere. Watch it as many times as you want.

We'd love to hear from you and help you!

Reach out to us at [email protected] or use the online contact form.

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