Summary
What is resilient enterprise design, and how can you incorporate it into your own enterprise organization? Craig Villamor is the VP of Product Experience & Design at AppDynamics and he talks about applying context and practicality to enterprise UX design to build resiliency.
Key Insights
-
•
Enterprise design must account for complex organizational contexts, not just individual user happiness.
-
•
Resilience in design means creating systems that flex and adapt under stress rather than breaking.
-
•
Customization is essential in enterprise software for companies to express their brand, culture, and workflows.
-
•
Loss of design control due to device variety and user customization requires influence over user behavior rather than strict enforcement.
-
•
Design principles are crucial to reduce indecision and provide a clear framework for decision-making in complex projects.
-
•
Prioritizing clarity over consistency can lead to better user experience outcomes.
-
•
Successful platforms often start by solving specific, concrete problems before generalizing widely.
-
•
Design systems function as living products that maintain consistency, flexibility, and scale across an ecosystem, including users.
-
•
Making it significantly easier to do the right thing drives adoption and behavior change in design.
-
•
Modeling real-world scenarios and anticipating customization scenarios helps create resilient, flexible enterprise applications.
Notable Quotes
"In the enterprise, it’s really about make me effective taking into account non-user personas as well as the individual."
"My boss might be looking over my shoulder and see nothing but red and think I’m not doing my job."
"Designing for the real world means dealing with practical constraints and making refinements in the face of compromise."
"We’re really passionate about our craft but we’re not in control — that’s a shared hallucination we must give up."
"If you design for everyone, no one is satisfied — start with specific solutions then generalize."
"The highest paid person’s opinion, or HIPPO, often makes decisions in the absence of principles and insights."
"Make it difficult to create ugly presentations — make it ten times easier to do the right thing."
"What happens when a user customizes the UI? Does the experience break? This is the question to ask."
"A style guide is an artifact, but a design system is a living, funded product with a roadmap serving an ecosystem."
"Resilient design needs to bend without breaking — to survive stresses while still delivering value."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"I am usually the only designer on the team, and it gets difficult to get the information needed for design decisions."
Ruzanna RozmanGetting in Flow with Your Team
January 8, 2024
"Simpler interfaces on mobile are an accessibility win for users with ADHD or cognitive challenges."
Sam ProulxMobile Accessibility: Why Moving Accessibility Beyond the Desktop is Critical in a Mobile-first World
November 17, 2022
"The key to managing a design team is to not just ignore problems but keep talking about them, even if there’s no quick fix."
Shipra Kayan Tess DixonHow Tess Dixon Facilitates Team Engagement and Collaboration at Condé Nast Using Miro
October 1, 2021
"There’s no other theory of change I’ve seen more true in large organizations than requiring dual-level support."
Alison Rand Sarah BrooksScaling Impact with Service Design
March 25, 2021
"If only we could just get that seat at the table."
Brendan JarvisFraming Tomorrow by Questioning Today
June 8, 2022
"The Skype engineers spent time in the community chatting with users and made product changes based on those conversations."
Ross SmithBreaking Barriers with Empathy
June 9, 2017
"Excel is the mental model of the scientific research world—a two-dimensional grid of literal data."
Victor Lombardi Ted Booth HK Dunston Andrew OtwellBridging Design and Climate Science
February 14, 2024
"Our general public, even advanced enterprise users, often struggle to interpret even the most basic charts."
Theresa NeilJust Build Me a Dashboard!
April 9, 2019
"Trying to convince with more data when the 'emergency brake' is on won’t work — emotional barriers must be addressed first."
Andrew WebsterScaling Design Capability: How Involved Should You Be?
September 30, 2021