Enterprise Storytelling Sessions
Summary
With curation and support from Dan Willis, eight presenters told their enterprise UX stories: Kim Bieler, Jane Bungum, David Cain, Audrey Crane, Lada Gorlenko, Jordan Koschei, Liu Liu, and Eva Miller.
Key Insights
-
•
Users resist enterprise tools that feel misaligned with their personal incentives, preferring familiar workarounds like Excel.
-
•
Effective enterprise UX requires not just designing products but fostering human trust and collaboration within teams.
-
•
Enterprise clients often impose processes that can conflict with UX best practices, requiring adaptation and education.
-
•
Enterprise design demands specialized skills blending technical knowledge and complex problem-solving, deserving distinct recognition.
-
•
Technology choices made early in enterprise products often persist unchallenged despite changing requirements, leading to major product limitations.
-
•
Transparent experiences with minimal user interfaces can sometimes better serve enterprise users focused on getting a job done.
-
•
Resistance from development teams can stem from cultural attitudes that overlook user experience in favor of technical pride.
-
•
Meditation and mindfulness practices help designers manage complexity, reduce imposter syndrome, and foster calm in high-pressure environments.
-
•
Framing enterprise UX challenges as elite skills helps attract talent and build credibility within organizations.
-
•
Physical solutions and tooling can greatly improve usability in environments where digital interfaces are impractical or unwelcome.
Notable Quotes
"Nobody wants nothing. Nobody says, can't, what the hell get in my office? How come you did not do anything?"
"Be a human first. I should have been a human first and a designer second."
"It's okay. I just wish it were a little bit jazzier and sexier."
"Anytime you have to justify something by saying just this one time, you know you’re going down a bad road."
"Developers are stinking gods among men, generous in their selfishness who keep fixing what’s not broken until it is."
"When systems fail, Jigad works best within a framework — innovation that must scale happens with an ecosystem view."
"The harder I think, the further I am from the answer."
"Are we bold enough to ditch the user interface in favor of a better experience, a transparent one?"
"Enterprise problems are often engineering problems as much as design problems."
"A typical enterprise customer has like five analysts who need a login, not millions of users."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"Knowledge gardening requires continuous nurturing — revisiting notes, expanding them over time, not just capturing and forgetting."
Jorge ArangoExploding the Notebook: How to Unlock the Power of Linked Notes (2nd of 3 seminars)
April 19, 2024
"It’s like sending around the Rolls Royce with the champagne bottle – a white glove, concierge service for recruiting partners."
Tracy McGoldrickIBM User Experience Program—The What, Why and How
October 15, 2021
"We must protect time, energy, mindset, and well-being if we want teams to be resilient."
Michelle MorrisonPractice What You Preach
January 8, 2024
"All negative outcomes in legacy modernization can be traced back to not bringing product thinking to the table."
Meaghan Waters Fotina KoutropoulousLack of Product Thinking will Doom Your Legacy Modernization
June 9, 2021
"When you step away as a conflict manager, the conflict often just reignites because the root issues aren’t addressed."
Sylvie Abookire Susan Abookire Caitlyn NalderA Civic Designer's Guide to Mindful Conflict Navigation
November 17, 2022
"AI in design can act as a creative companion, helping explore ideas and analyze past research more efficiently."
Peter Van Dijck Louis RosenfeldCoffee with Lou #4: Taking a Peek Under the Rosenbot's Hood
June 14, 2024
"Shamus Bern will talk about how to drop into a client site and grok what’s going on quickly without sacrificing why they hired you."
Dan WillisTheme 3: Intro
January 8, 2024
"Visualizing how a service was before and after a change opens the eyes of teams to redundancies and clarity."
Shreya Dhawan Victor Udoewa Xènia Viladas Florian VollmerMaking service tangible: the fastest path to higher performance
November 19, 2025
"In design critiques, framing feedback through justification helps incorporate seemingly impossible requests into context."
Cheryl PlatzMerging Improv with Design
March 7, 2019
