Samsung, with its bloated product line and hierarchical structure, struggles to lead in design
Why Samsung Design Stinks — Kevin Lee calls it “Steve Jobs Syndrome.” As the former head of product strategy and user experience design at Samsung Design America, Lee watched …
Context & Ripple Effects
Kevin Lee's insider critique lands just weeks after Samsung tried to fix its design problem from the top, hiring Tangerine co-president Lee Don-tae — whose agency once employed Jony Ive to run the global design team. Lee, formerly of Samsung Design America, argues that move alone can't work while a bloated product line and rigid hierarchy persist.
The critique proved durable: by year's end, Reuters reporting on employees tracing Samsung's mobile woes to its hardware-first culture echoed the same diagnosis from inside the company, and a decade on Samsung appointed Mauro Porcini as its first Chief Design Officer to pursue a consistent cross-device experience — suggesting the structural issue Lee described took years to address organizationally.
First-order effects
- Lee Don-tae inherits a design organization where product proliferation and hierarchical sign-off dilute any single vision, meaning his mandate depends on authority Samsung has historically not granted design leaders.
Second-order effects
- Apple remains the benchmark the criticism measures Samsung against, though Co.Design's parallel reporting on Apple sacrificing usability for style on iOS complicates the assumption that Apple's model transfers cleanly.
Third-order effects
- If hardware-centric conglomerates cannot lead in design without structural change, expect more companies to follow Samsung's eventual path of installing a single Chief Design Officer with company-wide authority over experience.
The trend: Consumer electronics giants are learning that design leadership requires organizational restructuring — consolidated authority and fewer products — rather than star hires alone.