About us
PDT is a community of creative problem solvers advancing human-centered design literacy through high-quality events, lively conversation, and practice-based development.
We're made up of all kinds of people: practitioners who use human-centered design methods and mindsets every day, designers and researchers, design strategists, Agile scrum leaders, urban planners, and many more who use or appreciate Design Thinking.
One way to define design thinking is that it is a mindset, approach, and set of tools and techniques for problem-solving and innovation anchored around human-centered design. Design thinking is different from other innovation and ideation processes in that it’s solution-based and user-centric rather than problem-based. This means it focuses on the solution to a problem instead of the problem itself. Design thinking is the essential ability to combine empathy, creativity, and rationality to meet human needs and drive business success.
Typically, we meet monthly, mostly virtually, and occasionally in person. Our monthly meetings, announced through MeetUp, may be webinar-style, or interactive and focus on some topic of interest to our community.
But we're about more than just meetup events.
You can find information about our upcoming events as well as links to recordings of past events on our website [PortlandDesignThinkers.com](portlanddesignthinkers.com).
We have an active, private Slack workspace – it is a thriving online discussion space for all things design thinking. Please join us there --[ https://bit.ly/2JuQ2V6](https://bit.ly/2JuQ2V6).
We also have a private LinkedIn group. Please join us there as well – https://www.linkedin.com/groups/13997019/.
PDT is a volunteer-run organization. We rely on sponsors and donations to help us offset these costs. If you or your organization is interested in sponsorship opportunities, please contact Deb Mrazek (debmrazek@gmail.com ).
Upcoming events
2
AI for UX Pros
·OnlineOnlineJoin Portland Design Thinkers at AI for UX Pros with Rikki Teeters
AI isn't just something UX designers design for -- it's something we can design with. In this talk, Rikki will share how she has integrated AI tools into her own UX practice to produce higher-quality work, faster.
From generating working prototypes instead of static mockups, to using AI as a thinking partner during research synthesis, to building complete products as a solo designer -- Rikki will show real examples of how AI collapses the gap between "design intent" and "working thing." This isn't about replacing craft. It's about raising the bar on what one designer can ship.
About Rikki:
Rikki Teeters is a Senior UX Designer and AI Design leader at Amazon, where she's spent nearly eight years designing across Prime Video, Amazon Explore, Whole Foods, Sponsored Ads, and People Experience. She is the author of Conscious UX: Leading Human-Centered Design in the Age of AI -- a book drawing on 130 conversations with UX practitioners across six continents about designing with empathy, ethics, and intention in the age of intelligent systems. She recently presented "Concept to Code: Transforming Ideas into Functional Products with Kiro" live on stage at Rosenfeld Media's Designing with AI conference. She leads a 14-session Vibe Coding for UX series teaching designers to build working software with AI tools, and believes the best AI products are the ones you never notice.***
If you have any questions or would like to connect with other members of PDT, join our Slack community.PDT is a volunteer-run Oregon nonprofit organization, and as you can imagine, organizing events can be expensive. We rely on sponsors and donations to help us offset these costs. If you would like to help, we accept donations through Venmo @PortlandDesignThinkers.
57 attendees
Hot topics, Cool Heads
North Bank Innovations at The VIC, 18110 SE 34th St. Suite #120, Vancouver, WA, USPortland Design Thinkers, The Pacific NW Facilitators Guild, and North Bank Innovations are excited to host a special in-person event: Hot Topics, Cool Heads
NOTE: THIS EVENT IS ON A WEDNESDAY
Every team has conversations where stakes are high, opinions clash, and silence is just as dangerous as conflict. This interactive workshop gives you practical techniques to facilitate those moments rather than dread them.
In this 90-minute, in-person session at North Bank Innovations at The VIC, members of the Pacific Northwest Facilitators Guild share their go-to methods for keeping tempers cool when hot topics arise. Through hands-on exercises and group discussion, you'll focus on group facilitation (team meetings, cross-functional discussions, leadership off-sites), not one-on-one conflict resolution.You'll leave with several facilitation techniques for cooling down high-stakes group conversations, plus a simple plan for trying at least one of them out in a meeting sometime in the next two weeks.
ABOUT THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST FACILITATORS GUILD
The PNWFG is a professional collective of independent facilitators and small firms serving Oregon and Washington. The Guild exists because organizations in this region deserve better access to skilled facilitation when it matters most: the high-stakes conversations, the stalled innovations, the cross-functional tangles, the decisions that keep getting deferred. Members bring a range of methodologies and deep experience.Please RSVP and let us know if your plans change, so we can plan accordingly.
Suggested Donation: $10 at the door helps cover costs, but money should never be the reason you miss this. If you can't contribute, you're more than welcome regardless.
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If you have any questions or would like to connect with other members of PDT, join our Slack community.PDT is a volunteer-run Oregon nonprofit organization, and as you can imagine, organizing events can be expensive. We rely on sponsors and donations to help us offset these costs. If you would like to help, we accept donations through Venmo @PortlandDesignThinkers.
2 attendees
Past events
128
Group links
Organizers
Members
2,364
