Why Toss Reduced Its Design Roles to Two

Why Read This from an HCI Perspective

This article shows that the integration of design roles is not just a simple organizational reshuffle, but a shift in how responsibilities are defined—moving from a ‘tool-centered’ distinction toward a ‘judgment-centered’ one. For HCI and UX practitioners, it prompts reflection on what core competencies become important when AI and automation lower the barrier to hard skills. For researchers, it offers a strong example of how role changes can affect real product experiences and collaboration structures. In particular, as boundaries blur, it forces us to consider how to redesign responsibility for user experience and the decision-making structure behind it.

CIT's Commentary

The most important point in this piece is not the ‘role integration’ itself, but the question of what people’s roles remain when tools become easier. Where roles used to be separated by whether you could work with Lottie or write code, the story now is that the ability to judge what constitutes a ‘better experience’ has become more important. This aligns with current HCI questions as AI tools become more widely used. As technology takes over tasks, interaction design becomes even more critical—how system state is communicated, where humans should intervene, and who is responsible for recovery when things fail. In a fast-execution product environment like Korea’s, this kind of integration happens quickly, but unless onboarding, evaluation, and responsibility pathways are redesigned together, an ‘expanded role’ can quickly become a ‘blurred responsibility.’

Questions to Consider While Reading

• Q.After integrating roles, how will you evaluate and grow good judgment?
• Q.As AI and tool automation advance further, where should the boundaries between designers and researchers be redrawn?
• Q.Role integration may increase speed but blur responsibility—what collaboration mechanisms can prevent that?