Jon Friedman
Partner Director of UX
Microsoft
Jon Friedman is a passionate design thinker, leader and speaker. As one of Microsoft’s few partner designer directors, he leads design, research and engineering teams to deliver next-gen communication experiences for work and life.
Friedman builds and leads his teams across interaction, visual design, motion, prototyping, research, industrial design, voice and brand—from early concept to creative development.
His best includes raising these large-scale projects to commercial release across the globe. And his vision? Hardware, software, web services and brands—brought to life in amazing ways.
Have Cake. Eat Cake
When he graduated design school Jon Friedman, now of Microsoft, wanted to change the world. He imagined a Future of the Future where the products he worked on enriched and enhanced people’s lives every day. At times, he would share his ambition with seasoned professionals and was almost always met with skepticism.
But after a decade of failures, he learned something: Creating amazing new products that enrich people’s lives is hard work, but getting people to use those products at any scale is nearly impossible. It turns out that these senior designers weren’t skeptics, they were realists.
Now, Friedman shares, A Future Perfect, filled with technological unicorns and rainbows, won’t be limited by our design dreams but by the rate of human adoption. We’re going to have to have our cake, and eat it, too.
