Cloudy, Astro, and a snowman next to text that says, "LeeAnee's Ultimate 2021 Design Thinking Playlist."

LeeAnne’s Ultimate 2021 Design Thinking Playlist

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As Salesforce Admins, we’re constantly working to design engaging and delightful user experiences. Whether we’re building custom pages with App Builder, customizing a mobile experience, or creating a useful and compelling dashboard, design is core to the work we do.

With all of the new product releases and enhancements happening on the Salesforce Platform, especially with App Builder, it has never been more important for admins to develop design skills. That’s why I’m excited to share this curated design thinking playlist I’ve created just for you! The content below is all from this year and will teach you about the fundamentals of design, how it relates to your role as an admin, and some of the specific features you can use in your design journey. Enjoy!

Cloudy in a snow globe and text that says "Favorite Design Thinking Blog Posts."

Foundations of Design Thinking for Salesforce Admins

What it covers: This blog introduces key concepts of design thinking and relates them to actions that many admins already perform! It helps to bring a new degree of understanding about why you do what you do and provides guiding principles for decision making during the development lifecycle.

Why I loved it: For years, admins have talked about how to delight their users by designing pages and experiences just for them. I loved learning about the area of human-centered design and how this principle helps everyone be more successful.

Read it here.

Introducing Dynamic Interactions, the Latest Low-Code Innovation for Salesforce Platform

What it covers: This product release blog provides an in-depth overview of Dynamic Interactions for App Builder, one of our most exciting “next big things” in how admins will be able to build and design custom page experiences for their users.

Why I loved it: Design thinking gives us the Why and the How, and the Salesforce Platform gives us the tools to accomplish them. I love seeing updates to App Builder; this is where admins can make incredible changes to their user experience.

Read it here.

Cloudy in a snow globe and text that says "Favorite Design Thinking Videos."

Be An Innovator with Design

What it covers: This short series features six videos that take you through the foundational steps of design thinking with hands-on exercises.

Why I loved it: In the foundations blog mentioned above, we cover the principles of design thinking for admins, and in this video series, we put it into action by building a page together.

Watch it here.

Cloudy in a snow globe and text that says "Favorite Design Thinking Podcast Episodes."

Design Thinking for Admins with Adam Doti

What it covers: In this interview with Gillian Bruce and Adam Doti, VP of Design, we learn about how Adam has worked to bring designers together at Salesforce. Plus, they share the resources they’ve put together to help you apply design thinking concepts in your org.

Why I loved it: Adam does a great job tying together the growth of the platform with the need for Salesforce Admins to apply design skills to everything they do. Good design has never been more important, and I loved learning about how admins can lead in this area.

Listen to it here.

Designing a Dynamic Experience with Farhan Tahir

What it covers: Gillian Bruce and I had the chance to interview Farhan Tahir, VP of Product Management at Salesforce, who manages App Builder and Pages. Farhan shares why admins are leading the transformation at their companies and what product updates they can expect to see in the future.

Why I loved it: Farhan has worked at Salesforce for a long time (14 years!) in a wide variety of roles. I loved learning about how he sees the admin role growing, and how the rapid transformation of the way we do business has positioned admins to be leaders at their companies. Plus, who doesn’t like a product sneak peek?!

Listen to it here.

Start learning design fundamentals today

These posts are a great place to start learning more about how to build design fundamentals into your work as an admin. I hope you can use these skills in daily practice as you customize your environments, and that you consider exploring our new Designer certification!

We want to know what your favorite admin resources from the year were, too! Sharing your favorite blog posts, videos, and podcast episodes is easy.

1️⃣ Fill in our quip template: sforce.co/FavoriteAdminContent.
2️⃣ Take a screenshot of it.
3️⃣ Share it on social using #AwesomeAdmin.

We can’t wait to see what resources you enjoyed the most.

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