Resilient Enterprise Design
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
"Flexibility goes both ways: consultants must adapt to the client’s way, but clients must allow consultants to bring new approaches."
Melinda BelcherInsider preview of Enterprise Experience 2020
May 28, 2020
"I hammer on information architecture probably more than almost any other interviewer because I believe it’s the central part of the system."
Bob BaxleyLeading with Design Operations Past and Present
December 19, 2019
"Responsible systems are systems that keep humans in control."
Carol SmithOperationalizing Responsible, Human-Centered AI
June 7, 2023
"We introduced an 'explanation not needed' approach so researchers can decline projects without having to justify themselves."
Brian MossWhat Does it Mean to be a Resilient Research Team?
March 9, 2022
"Imagine a world where research bots at IBM talk to the Rosen bot to give you better guidance on interpreting research."
Louis RosenfeldThe Rosenbot and the Rosenverse: An AMA with Lou Rosenfeld
June 5, 2024
"The conversation is about how much is this team costing the organization and whether that cost will be worth it in the future."
Jackie HoLead Effectively While Preserving Team Autonomy with Growth Boards
January 8, 2024
"Design ops is a change leadership function because you have to influence people you often have no formal authority over."
Jon FukudaStorytelling for DesignOps
August 17, 2023
"Maybe we cannot orchestrate everything, but we can dance with the system."
John Mortimer Milan Guenther Lucy Ellis Patrick QuattlebaumPanel Discussion
December 3, 2024
"Telepathy as mind reading means proactively building a talent pipeline and improving recruitment processes."
Kate Koch Prateek KalliFlex Your Super Powers: When a Design Ops Team Scales to Power CX
September 30, 2021
