A lead designer at an online review platform watched ad cancellations climb because the onboarding flow differed across mobile, desktop, and web. Three separate teams owned pieces of the problem. None had the full picture. She built it herself.
Her method: pull support tickets, past research, roadmaps, and analytics across all three teams, then propose three solutions mapped to each team's constraints. Stakeholders saw the rigor and asked for her recommendation. Nielsen Norman Group calls this design autonomy: the ability to influence product direction, not just UI surface choices. The article frames this outcome inside a four-step framework for closing the information gaps that large organizations structurally create.
The case for reading the full piece is not the conclusion. It is the framework itself, specifically how it defines the information pipeline and where designers typically break it. If you work inside a siloed org and wonder why your recommendations get ignored, this is the diagnostic.
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