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
"I felt like a journalist pretending to be a designer."
Emily EagleCan't Rewind: Radio and Retail
June 3, 2019
"You need to know tomorrow’s user as well as today’s because their characteristics differ greatly according to diffusion of innovation."
Christian RohrerResearch Operations at Scale
November 7, 2017
"We’re seeing these agents trying to represent ourselves online in ways we’ve never seen before - Bria."
Bria Alexander Brittany Hobbs Christopher NoesselDay 1 Panel: Up to the Minute: The latest in AI’s impact on UX
June 10, 2025
"Focus groups reveal subconscious behaviors and non-verbal cues that individual interviews might miss."
Taiye Akin-AkinyosoyeAmplifying voices and enhancing user research through group interviews
March 12, 2025
"Business language is for communication. We use it to explain why user centricity matters to broader audiences."
Iain McMaster IHan ChengDesign and Product: from Frenemy to Harmony
November 29, 2023
"Catherine Andrew will share her experience bringing research and analytics functions together to create integrated insight teams."
Jemma AhmedTheme 2 Intro
March 10, 2022
"I am one of the lucky ones. I have not lost my job this year and I get to work on inclusion and accessibility every day."
Saara Kamppari-MillerTheme Three Intro
October 4, 2023
"Our aspirations and anxieties are our users and messages, our passions and pet peeves."
Kit Unger Lada GorlenkoTheme 3 Intro
June 10, 2022
"The conference is a single track, so everyone listens to the same content together, fostering community focus."
Rachael Dietkus, LCSW Victor Udoewa Jennifer StricklandEverything You Need to Know about the Civic Design 2022 Call for Presentations
May 17, 2022
Latest Books All books
Dig deeper with the Rosenbot
What are best practices for engaging C-suite executives and physicians as champions for B2B healthcare apps?
What HIPAA-compliant platforms are recommended for quickly developing healthcare apps?
In what ways can AI tools accelerate value delivery in design operations, and what pitfalls should be avoided?