Katarina Batina
Design Director for the Shop app at Shopify.
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What they believe
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The most enduring skill in this era is shaping great products, not just executing: designers come for craft work and leave as great product thinkers.
that's the big shift change is people come to do great craft work, but they leave really great product thinkers. And that to me is one of the most enduring skills in this era as we move out of like our central value being execution into being people who can shape great products that people love to use.
youtube.comSaid 12 May 2026This on korrents
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Beliefs
Korrents What they believe 20 beliefs — each backed by an exact quote.
Each is a — compiled by korrents.com, not by them: the one-line wordings are korrents', the quotes are theirs.
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The most enduring skill in this era is shaping great products, not just executing: designers come for craft work and leave as great product thinkers.
that's the big shift change is people come to do great craft work, but they leave really great product thinkers. And that to me is one of the most enduring skills in this era as we move out of like our central value being execution into being people who can shape great products that people love to use.
Katarina Batina - Making big bets with design Said 12 May 2026
Any redesign of an incumbent product, such as an onboarding flow, almost always loses at first; it takes the confidence and agreement to begin below the status quo baseline in order to beat the incumbent.
Any team who's had to optimize an onboarding flow and that one time you decided to redesign it, like it almost always loses, right? But it's having the confidence and the agreement to begin, like we're actually going out to beat the incumbent and we're going to reset a baseline that inherently might be a little lower than what status quo is today.
Katarina Batina - Making big bets with design Said 12 May 2026
Teams need to create the grounds to take some risk, committing as much iteration to the new thing as was put into the incumbent product.
you need to create the grounds to take some risk knowing that you're going to commit just as much iteration into the next thing as you did the the the incumbent product.
Katarina Batina - Making big bets with design Said 12 May 2026
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Designers should focus on what differentiates them, which is designing what is desirable, and pick the tools that render the idea in the most believable way rather than worrying about feasibility.
refocus on what makes you as a designer differentiated which is designing what's desirable. Don't worry about feasibility. Pick the tools that are going to allow you to render the idea in the most believable way.
Katarina Batina - Making big bets with design Said 12 May 2026
Not being able to ship a prototype to production does not mean a designer has failed.
The fact that you can't ship it to production doesn't mean that you've failed.
Katarina Batina - Making big bets with design Said 12 May 2026
When prototyping a full feature, a designer should render the whole idea and use that as the thing to talk to engineering with, rather than aiming to ship it end to end to production.
If you're trying to prototype a full feature, don't go for the moonshot of end to ending this and shipping it to production. Just render the whole idea and then use that as the thing you talk to engineering with.
Katarina Batina - Making big bets with design Said 12 May 2026
Design should be the tip of the spear for desirability, and taste, editing and deciding what matters are skills that have long had their home in design practice.
design should be the tip of the spear for desiraability. And I think that's probably the genesis of like if you extrapolate that comment out to like taste, editing, deciding what actually matters, that's a skill set that has been naturally a home in the design practice since before computers were invented.
Katarina Batina - Making big bets with design Said 12 May 2026
Constraints driving the design process is something to avoid, especially now.
the thing that I hate to see are is when constraints start driving the design process, especially now.
Katarina Batina - Making big bets with design Said 12 May 2026
With any new explosion of tools, designers may start designing to their local skill set.
The thing I worry about with any new kind of tool explosion as designers are learning is that they'll start designing to their local skill set.
Katarina Batina - Making big bets with design Said 12 May 2026
Editing, focusing on the most critical aspects of an experience and being really disciplined about it, has become an important part of the design job.
Editing has been an important part of the job as of recently. um really focusing in on what is the most critical aspects of our experience and getting really really disciplined about that.
Katarina Batina - Making big bets with design Said 12 May 2026
The way to build excitement for an idea is still to make a really compelling prototype and tell a story, and that is much easier now.
make a really compelling prototype and tell a story. I think that stands now. I just think that your ability to do that, it's honestly much easier.
Katarina Batina - Making big bets with design Said 12 May 2026
Beyond designers working in code, this era unlocks access to data and legibility into the business that designers did not have before.
As much as there's a really myopic focus on like designers in code, which is important and true, and I am totally signed on on, we're missing the other part of what this era is unlocking for designers, which is access to data, access to allegibility in the business that you didn't have before.
Katarina Batina - Making big bets with design Said 12 May 2026
Making internal decision-making legible is critically important, so that previous decisions can be found by simply asking an agent.
But all of that data then has an MCP hooked up to it that as I'm looking to make decisions as a product leader, I can just ask my agent and it will query and find all of these previous decisions, we've actually worked on that before. Here's where it failed. And so making as much internal decision making legible feels critically critically important.
Katarina Batina - Making big bets with design Said 12 May 2026
Great design leaders of this era need a deeply intense relationship with what the business is there to do, paired with a deep relationship with what makes great design.
great design leaders of this era just have to have a deeply intense relationship with what the business is there to do and pair that intensity with a deep relationship with what makes great design.
Katarina Batina - Making big bets with design Said 12 May 2026
It will probably be a tough go in the long run for the professional manager whose calendar is driven by one-on-one time on career development, and a culture of designers improving is hard to build without deep passion for the craft.
I think it's really hard to generate that culture if you're not deeply passionate about the craft. I think it'll be a really tough go in the long run for like the professional manager whose calendar is really driven by one-on-one time talking about career development.
Katarina Batina - Making big bets with design Said 12 May 2026
One-on-one time should be about the work: opening up the prototype, live critique, and helping designers make better decisions.
one-on-one time should be about the work. Let's get into the work. Let's open up your prototype. Let's have live critique and and you know move this work forward and help designers figure out how to make better decisions.
Katarina Batina - Making big bets with design Said 12 May 2026
Language is becoming the material for building, so the more precisely designers can say what is wrong with the work, the better off they will be in an agentic era.
our material language for building is now becoming words. We now have to give critique to our agents. Most the time we have to point at the thing and say, "This isn't right, and here's why." The higher fidelity that designers can have in the language they use to make their work better, the better off they're going to be in an agentic era
Katarina Batina - Making big bets with design Said 12 May 2026
Data itself is objective, but the reading of it is never objective; it is always subjective.
Keep in mind data can be twisted. It can have a story behind it. Not intentionally, but like data itself is objective. The reading of it is never objective. It is always subjective.
Katarina Batina - Making big bets with design Said 12 May 2026
The discourse about who is taking whose job misses the point; the takeaway should be that it has never been easier to extend one's capabilities as a product leader.
there's like a very zero- sum silly discourse that's happening now is like who's taking whose job? And I'm like, "Oh my god, who cares?" Like, this is not this is totally not the the takeaway that people should have. The takeaway should be it's never been easier to extend what your capabilities are as a product leader.
Katarina Batina - Making big bets with design Said 12 May 2026
Everyone should operate from the baseline of figuring out what is true and then figuring out what to do about it.
figure out what's true and then figure out what to do about it. And that that is like the baseline under how everyone should be operating.
Katarina Batina - Making big bets with design Said 12 May 2026
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Where they publish
x.com @katarinabatina Short posts on design, product and the odd object made.
Mixed posts since 2020: a framework for talking about product design projects, design-industry asides, and photos of a standing desk and office shelving designed for a redesigned office (July 2024). The profile bio reads “VP of Design @shopify”.
Link verified 4 Oct 2026.
Interviews As a guest Long-form interviews on other people’s channels, chosen and not exhaustive.
Katarina’s own voice by participation: Dive Club’s hour on the Shop app’s feed and cart, balancing metrics and vision, designers moving into Swift, and design leadership in an AI era.
Link verified 4 Oct 2026.
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