Junior designers are not trained to cope with critical situations and conflict at work. Most design schools do not educate their design students to prepare them for (potential) conflict. As a result, junior designers often do not have conflict-handling skills to handle critical situations and conflicts. While some tools and methods exist to help them make responsible design choices, these often address value differences underlying (potential) conflict without taking the perspective of the designer, and thus without supporting young designers to start by reflecting on their own intrinsic values.The aim of this study is to find a way to help junior designers to reflect effectively on critical situations, thereby improving their conflict-handling skills. Data was collected through four steps in an action research. Researchers collaborated with an identity programme for junior design professionals. Insights from try-outs and small interventions were transferred into design requirements for an approach to educate and facilitate junior design professionals to reflect more effectively on critical situations.

Customer experience (CX) is a differentiation strategy often chosen by companies. But several aspects can hinder the realization of this strategic change: Existing routines, strong silo thinking among departments, and other circumstances work against the creation of a holistic CX. There is very little guidance in the literature about becoming more customer centric in practice. Within design practice, customer‐centric thinking and working are key aspects. Therefore, this article addresses the question of how a design approach can facilitate a company's change process from the abstract strategic direction of focusing on CX to a way of working in practice. The article is based on a practice‐led case study of an airline company where the first author worked from within the company to test solutions directly in daily practice. We conclude that in order to move from the strategic direction of a CX focus to an applicable proposal, designers can support both top‐down and bottom‐up processes. A trial‐and‐error approach and boundary objects can be useful in finding emotional triggers for employees to reflect about their own roles.

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