Rosenverse

This video is only accessible to Gold members. Log in or register for a free Gold Trial Account to watch.

Log in Register

Most conference talks are accessible to Gold members, while community videos are generally available to all logged-in members.

First-time users, longtime strategies: Why Parkinson’s Law is making you less effective at work – and how to design a fix.
Gold
Wednesday, June 8, 2016 • Enterprise UX 2016
Share the love for this talk
First-time users, longtime strategies: Why Parkinson’s Law is making you less effective at work – and how to design a fix.
Speakers: Fredrik Matheson
Link:

Summary

The speaker begins with a personal anecdote about frustration with British Airways’ enterprise systems, setting the stage for discussing the broader challenges users face with complex technology in large organizations. Drawing on historical examples such as the British Royal Navy's shift from coal to oil and the growth of the Admiralty staff, the speaker introduces Parkinson’s Law—coined by Cyril Northcoat Parkinson—which humorously explains why bureaucratic work steadily grows regardless of actual workload. The talk then transitions into the persistent complexity of enterprise software, citing Larry Tesler’s question of who should shoulder this complexity. Examples are shared from air traffic control, expert photo editing, and government tax and rights management systems to illustrate different levels of user expertise and system fitness for task. The speaker emphasizes the importance of designing systems not just for ease of use but for task fit and context, acknowledging the inevitability of some complexity. A telecom case study shows how redesigning and consolidating multiple legacy systems into a single interface (one screen) took years of cross-disciplinary collaboration and political navigation to improve business outcomes like reduced errors and increased efficiency. The speaker highlights the need for precise, measurable goals tied to business value rather than vague notions of 'great user experience.' Methods like impact mapping and value proposition design are shared as emerging approaches to align UX and product management work with organizational strategy. The talk closes by advocating that designers must engage deeply with technology choices and organizational politics to shape meaningful, scalable user experiences in enterprise contexts.

Key Insights

  • Parkinson’s Law explains why bureaucratic workforces grow regardless of actual workload, driven by middle managers creating more work to feel important.

  • Enterprise users often remain 'first-time users' due to constantly changing and complex systems without adequate training or support.

  • Larry Tesler’s question highlights the burden of software complexity: should it lie with users or designers? Often complexity is passed on to users.

  • Fitness for task is a more useful framework than simple usability or ease, since some complex tasks inherently require complex tools and expertise.

  • Improving enterprise software usability can involve simplifying tools, shifting or reducing complexity, revising procedures, or reengineering entire value chains.

  • Clear, measurable goals rooted in business impact are critical to justify and guide UX and product efforts in complex enterprises.

  • Designers must participate in strategic decisions around platform choice and organizational processes to influence long-term user experience outcomes.

  • Integration and consolidation of fragmented legacy systems into unified, user-centric platforms can drastically improve efficiency but requires patience and political skill.

  • Training and hiring experts for complex domains (e.g., air traffic control) is acceptable, but general enterprise users deserve simpler, fit-for-purpose tools.

  • Combining impact mapping, value proposition design, and agile delivery can help teams stay aligned on delivering user and business value in product development.

Notable Quotes

"Something’s going to go wrong. You know, something went wrong."

"What you want is a multiplication so that you can have people do the same work but have more people doing it so you'll feel more important."

"The new challenge of adulthood is keeping your cool in the face of broken technology as demands are placed upon you to perform very well."

"Users are not interested in learning the intricacies of the British Airways website. I have to deal with many different airline websites."

"It’s better to be honest about it: it’s actually very hard. It’s not impossible, but it’s hard and it takes a long time."

"You can’t convince any organization into having some great user experience by saying it would be nice for it to be simpler."

"If you say great user experience, no, it’s not specific, it’s not measurable, it’s not actionable."

"We want to reduce the time it takes from somebody starting in this role to be fully fluent with the system by a factor of four."

"There’s no point in sitting in your office because there’s no new information available there. Everything is probably pre-filtered."

"If the system is difficult, the users have a big burden upon them. And in some cases, that’s just how it is."

Ask the Rosenbot
Michaela Mora
Advanced Concept Testing Approaches To Guide Product Development and Business Decisions
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold
Ned Dwyer
The Intersection of Design and ResearchOps
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024
Gold
Jemma Ahmed
Democratization: Working with it, not against it [Advancing Research Community Workshop Series]
2024 • Advancing Research Community
Brian Moss
What Does it Mean to be a Resilient Research Team?
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold
Ryan Matthew
Bridging Design and Code: AI-Powered Design System Integration
2025 • DesignOps Summit 2025
Gold
Rich Mironov
How Can Product Managers and UXers Help Each Other (and Why are Product Folks so Annoying Sometimes)?
2022 • Design in Product 2022
Gold
Marjorie Stainback
What Research Ops Professionals Have Learned from COVID-19
2020 • Advancing Research Community
Lavy Kumar
Future of Work
2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold
Chris Hodowanec
Agile + User Experience: How to navigate the Agile landscape as an UX Practitioner
2022 • Civic Design 2022
Gold
Andreas Huebner
What Is It Like To Be Part of The UX Team at Compass?
2021 • Advancing Research 2021
Gold
Sabrina Mach
How to Design Your Design Operating Model
2021 • DesignOps Summit 2021
Gold
Sarah Barrett
AI in Real Life: Using LLMs to Turbocharge Microsoft Learn
2025 • Rosenfeld Community
Mike Brzozowski
UX in everyday products: Empowering climate conscious choices
2024 • Climate UX Interest Group
Séamus Byrne
Aligning Teams with Choreography
2024 • Enterprise Experience 2020
Gold
Changying (Z) Zheng
Navigating Innovation with Integrity
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024
Gold
Robert Schwartz
We're Here for the Humans
2017 • Enterprise Experience 2017
Gold

More Videos

Marc Fonteijn

"Everyone goes through quite an extensive application process, but it was stress-free and informal."

Marc Fonteijn Ru Butler

Increase your confidence, influence, and impact (through a Professional Community)

December 3, 2024

Victor M. Gonzalez

"Doing work in one-week cycles fits the rhythms of companies working with agile and Scrum frameworks."

Victor M. Gonzalez

Practicing Learners and Learning Practitioners

March 10, 2021

Elana Chapman

"Assistive technology is a tool; we need to make sure we enable that tool to do its job."

Elana Chapman Li Wen Huang Divyen Sanganee Annabel Weiner

Getting started with accessibility research

February 20, 2025

Karen Pascoe

"If you have somebody on your team for three years, for five years, that’s amazing from a longevity perspective given enterprise legacy and complexity."

Karen Pascoe

Developing Experience Teams and Talent in the Enterprise

June 8, 2016

Dawn Ressel

"Widgets encapsulate a user task with associated user interface and back end service functionality."

Dawn Ressel

Full-Stack User Experiences: A Marriage of Design and Technology

June 9, 2016

Gretchen Anderson

"Invite yourself to the table by bringing actual deliverables, like storyboards and prototypes."

Gretchen Anderson

Scaling the Human Center

June 8, 2017

Mila Kuznetsova

"A growth mindset in research means being ready to adapt protocols based on what actually works with participants."

Mila Kuznetsova Lucy Denton

How Lessons Learned from Our Youngest Users Can Help Us Evolve our Practices

March 9, 2022

Sam Proulx

"Compliance is a framework, not just a checklist to tick off."

Sam Proulx

Accessibility: An Opportunity to Innovate

November 16, 2022

Nathan Curtis

"Allowing teams to override small things like button color may be justified if it delivers business value."

Nathan Curtis

Design Systems for Us: How Many One-Source(s)-of-Truth Are Enough?

January 17, 2019