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What I learned about building a vision in Product Design at Hatch Conference‍

1. A fresh perspective from Hatch Berlin

Hatch Berlin is a conference aimed at senior UX professionals and design leaders. Hyphen was present as a sponsor, and it was like a breath of fresh air for anyone passionate about UX and product innovation.  

This year the topics were focused on strategic, business-oriented UX, process innovation, AI’s impact on design, ethical, accessible practices and vision and inspiration. The event encouraged critical thinking, visionary leadership, and a deeper understanding of how design shapes and is shaped by business and technology.  

This article is about: the traps of short-term thinking and the importance of vision, everyday kind of vision, snowballing away from the roadmap.  

Inspired by Blair Fraser’s talk “A movie-inspired guide to visionary Product Design”,  I started questioning:

• How often we lose sight of the big picture.  

• Between meetings, roadmaps and endless delivery cycles, it's easy to fall into a reactive mindset, building features instead of designing with purpose.  

• Fraser’s movie-inspired take reminded me that visionary product design requires clarity, imagination and, above all, intention.

Blair’s talk played out like a cinematic guide to visionary product design and, unexpectedly, to the art of designing a truly meaningful life.‍

2. Why vision matters more than ever

Vision is hard! Setting up a vision matters but then comes the struggle of why vision work is hard until you finally get to the stage where you make a resolution on how to practice vision.

• How many of you have wrestled with this? How many of us get to the performance review season and cannot point out more than 2 or 3 lines on our "Wins doc" because we have spent all our precious time with our head down chasing roadmaps, jira tickets or sprint cycles?
• How many of us ask questions like: what are we building towards?  

Becoming uninspired and uninspiring comes with a tall order to follow. Blair's talk is about taking your head down from the daily grind and looking up! Vision is a mindset and sure is not on our backlog.  

3. Vision as a daily practice, not a Grand Gesture

We are not talking about building cathedrals kind of vision; Blair talks about something simpler that you can practice every day and achievable by all teams.

Blair talks about "speculative vision, emotionally charged ideas, unplanned vision work, something we can give people to be excited about, away from the backlog".    ‍

4. How Netflix won with imagination, not roadmaps

Blair reminded us of the reason why Netflix won the battle against Blockbuster:  

• Netflix won, not just because it offered a better service or it had a more ambitious 12-month roadmap, but because it presented a different future.
• Netflix didn’t just compete with Blockbuster; it reframed what movie-watching could be.  
• It shifted people’s expectations entirely and you can only achieve this ... with vision. Acts of vision and imagination can literally change the direction where we are going.

Everyday speculative vision work can overcome common organizational inertia and complexity primarily by providing clarity, emotional charge, and a shared direction that breaks teams out of short-term, "heads-down" default modes.

5. Overcoming organizational inertia through speculative vision

Instead of relying solely on roadmaps and incremental improvements, speculative vision introduces emotionally charged concepts that spark curiosity, provide clarity and create shared direction. These lightweight, exploratory visions help teams lift their heads from the backlog, challenge assumptions, and navigate complexity with renewed energy and purpose.

Here are some exercises that we can do with our teams to promote discussion, spark curiosity and create a shared speculative vision:

“User Time Travel”

Imagine a user five years from now:

• How has their life changed?
• What do they expect from technology, AI, privacy, automation?
• How should the product adapt?

Great for breaking today’s assumptions.

“Speculative Sprint 60” (60-minute mini sprint)

A lightweight, 1-hour vision sprint:

1. 10 min – identify current frustrations
2. 10 min – brainstorm desirable futures
3. 20 min – sketch concepts or storyboards
4. 20 min – share and discuss

Fast, low-pressure and creates emotional alignment.

“What If…?” Storm

The team generates a list of questions starting with What if…?

• What if onboarding didn’t exist?
• What if 90% of the product was automated?
• What if the user never had to open the app?

Perfect for breaking conventional thinking.

6. Breaking out the "Default Mode"

Inertia often manifests as the "default mode," where teams are buried in short-term goals, delivery metrics, and backlog tickets, making it hard to step back and reflect.

• Adopt the "Look Up" Mindset: Vision is described not as a KPI or a roadmap, but as a posture or mindset that encourages teams to lift their eyes and question if there is a better way to proceed. Visionary ideas can help lift teams out of the product backlog and offer excitement, which breaks the tendency to focus only on what is urgent.

• Do Not Wait for Permission: Visionary thinking does not require a specific title (like VP of Strategy) or experience. Individuals should realize that they don't need to wait for permission from managers or executives to start thinking ahead or exploring future possibilities.

• Proactively Make Time and Space: While it can feel like Alice in Wonderland, always running and reactive, you cannot wait for time or space to manifest itself. We must actively "make it" by looking for opportunities to explore ideas within the existing constraints and "inside the cracks of your current work".

7. Bringing clarity into complexity

Complexity arises from confusion, lack of direction, and the difficulty of aligning multiple teams or cultures.

Provide Essential Clarity and Direction: In moments of massive technology step change (like the emergence of AI) or organizational flux, vision is essential. Vision acts as a bridge builder and navigator, helping teams find alignment and a clearer direction, moving them through complexity. It answers the critical question: "What are we building towards?".

8. Start Scrappy: Vision doesn’t need to be polished

Start Scrappy and Resourcefully: Do not let the pressure of having a perfect or polished vision stall the work. Vision can start "scrappy," and showing a messy, raw sketch or prototype is fine and can still be directional. Even under heavy constraints, like the real-life Apollo 13 scenario, innovation is possible by using only what is currently available.

9. Planting Seeds Instead of Deliverables

Plant Ideas as Seeds (Don't Get Attached): Speculative ideas should be treated as "sketches to spark conversation," not final solutions. When sharing ideas, manage expectations; you are often planting a seed that you expect to grow over time, rather than seeking immediate approval to "ship it".  

10. Showing the evolution: From today to tomorrow

Show the Path (Make the Journey Visible): When presenting bold ideas, show incremental evolutions to make the transition from the current state ("today") to the visionary future ("tomorrow") more digestible and approachable. Showing these steps (like Pokemon evolution) helps bridge the gap for those who might find the end state too jarring.

11. Storytelling as the engine of emotional alignment

Utilize Storytelling for Emotional Connection: It is the story that makes people care, not merely the UI or the perfection of the prototype. To get the vision to stick, tell a story and make an emotional connection, which can be achieved even with a rough storyboard or one-pager. This emotional connection is a vital design output, leading to hope and team energy.  

12. Connecting Vision to Business Value

Reframe Value in Business Terms: To secure resources and gain buy-in, you must show how your vision helps the business win. This involves reframing the idea in terms that matter to the business, considering how it solves real user needs and what its potential impact is.

13. Using Customer Excitement to Rally Resources

Rally Resources Through Customer Excitement: Showing early, conceptual prototypes (the "concept car") to customers can elicit strong feedback and excitement. This customer reaction can be leveraged to convince the leadership (C-suite, CEO, and board) to rally the necessary resources (money and additional staff) and literally change the road map. Letting the user's reaction "light up" when they experience the idea can convince teams without needing to "sell the idea" yourself.

14. Conclusion and Key take aways

In the end, speculative vision isn’t about predicting the future, it’s about creating space to imagine a better one.  

In a world of constant delivery cycles, it reminds product teams to lift their heads, reconnect with purpose and design with intention. Vision becomes a daily practice that cuts through organizational inertia, aligns people around shared direction and fuels the emotional energy needed to navigate complexity. And, as the Netflix example shows, even small imaginative leaps can redefine industries.  

Vision is not a privilege reserved for leaders; it’s a mindset available to every team member willing to look beyond the roadmap and offer a glimpse of what could be.

Movies that can be inspiring to Product Designers

Movies can be powerful tools for product teams because they distill complex ideas into clear narratives, emotional arcs and bold “what if” scenarios. They help us step outside day-to-day constraints and imagine alternative futures, exactly what speculative vision work aims to unlock. The following films offer metaphors, mindsets and storytelling approaches that can spark creativity, challenge assumptions and inspire teams to think beyond the roadmap.

• A Complete Unknown - This movie belongs on the list mainly as a cautionary reminder that ‘the times they are a-changin’.’ It reflects how the rise of AI should be prompting us to rethink how we design, manage, and shape both products and user experiences
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• Don't Look Up - This movie is a brilliant metaphor for short-termism, denial, and the difficulty of mobilizing people (and systems) around long-term, complex threats. For productThis movie is a brilliant metaphor for short-termism, denial, and the difficulty of mobilizing people (and systems) around long-term, complex threats. For productThis movie is a brilliant metaphor for short-termism, denial, and the difficulty of mobilizing people (and systems) around long-term, complex threats. For product designers, that’s a reminder to look beyond short-term KPIs, engagement metrics, and trends, and design with a view to long-term value, trust, and impact

• Superman (2025) - Mostly because of the inspiring poster, the upward momentum that show direction and clarity

• Apollo 13 - This "true story" was used to show that innovation is possible even under heavy constraints, referencing the scene where the mission control team had to figure out how to solve the fatal CO2 buildup problem using only the parts available in the spacecraft

• The Martian - This was introduced as an example of starting where you are. Watney, stranded on Mars, decides to "science the shit out of this" by using the resources available to him instead of waiting for a perfect plan or rescue

• Interstellar - Blair identified this as one of his favorite movies, using Cooper's decision to explore for another planet, despite uncertainty, as an analogy for speculative design exploring based on a hunch because staying put is not an option

• The Matrix - This movie was referenced when discussing the "default mode" trap, comparing it to Neo being offered the blue pill (staying in the system) or the red pill (seeing the bigger picture and imagining something different)

• Hidden Figures - Cited as an example of overcoming the trap of waiting for permission, noting how Catherine Johnson (or the actress playing her) stepped up to solve complex equations without authorization

• Ratatouille - Used to illustrate the trap of getting too precious about ideas. The harsh critique that Remy the Rat and Linguini received from the brutal food critic was mentioned, noting how the meal eventually connected with the critic's heart through a memory of his childhood

• Barbie - Avoiding the trap of thinking that ideas need to be polished, suggesting that vision can start "scrappy". The Barbie movie may look hyper-polished on the surface, but its vision started in a very raw, disruptive place: a simple idea “What if Barbie questioned her own existence?”  that broke every rule of what a Mattel movie “should” be

• Inception - Blair expressed his love for this movie, using Cobb's explanation that "an idea is like a virus, resilient, highly contagious" to emphasize that ideas are like seeds that need time and nurturing to grow

• How to Train Your Dragon - This movie (specifically "not the new one") was referenced to highlight the power of story and emotional connection, focusing on the moment Hiccup reaches out to the misunderstood dragon, Toothless, symbolizing trust, connection, and empathy

• Moneyball - When discussing the need to reframe the value of ideas in terms that matter to the business, though Blair noted that the point is not deep analysis but using the business's own terms

• Jurassic Park - This movie was mentioned to demonstrate the power of letting users experience a vision. Hammond did not pitch a slide deck but simply showed the paleontologists the dinosaur, and their reaction instantly conveyed the vision's impact