Saturday, February 28, 2026 @ 11:30 AM
Mistakes Designers Make: The Habits That Limit Your Influence, Credibility, and Growth
Designers are great at details. Flows, interfaces, and the perfect interaction. But many careers stall not because of poor design, but because designers don’t understand the systems their work lives inside.
This session will explore the most common mistakes designers make when they focus on craft without context. Drawing on service design work in complex environments, this talk is about trade-offs, influence, and learning to design for real-world conditions, not ideal ones.
Learning Outcomes:
- Learn how to identify common designer mistakes that limit influence and career growth
- Understand how constraints and systems shape design decisions
- Learn how to communicate design value in ways decision-makers understand
- Gain insight into how service design strengthens UX practice in complex contexts
Our Speaker
Sydney Johnson
Head of Design at J5
She/Her
About Sydney
Sydney is a service design leader dedicated to creating human-centred strategies and solutions that actually work in the real world. As Head of Design at J5 Design, she leads both people and delivery, guiding complex projects across healthcare, corporate, and non-profit sectors.
Sydney specializes in codesign and collaborative methodologies, bringing together diverse stakeholders to shape services that are practical, inclusive, and grounded in lived experience. Her work spans large-scale system transformation, experience strategy, and community-led design, with a strong focus on translating insight into action.
She is also the co-founder of Service Design YYC, where she helps grow and connect Calgary’s service design community. Sydney’s approach is guided by authenticity, purpose, and a deep belief that better outcomes emerge when people are meaningfully involved in shaping the solutions that affect them.
Where to Go
Calgary Central Library | BMO Room
Level 0
