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
"One of our superpowers is super speed: moving at the speed of light almost in onboarding and resource planning."
Kate Koch Jean-Claire FitschenFlex Your Super Powers: When a Design Ops Team Scales to Power CX
September 29, 2021
"Those of us who do not understand history are doomed to repeat it."
Sam ProulxTo Boldly Go: The New Frontiers of Accessibility
November 18, 2022
"You may need to operate the prototype on behalf of users whose assistive tech can’t click or interact with clickable prototypes."
Sam ProulxPrototype Reviews, People With Disabilities, and You
December 8, 2021
"The organization’s website structure often mirrors its internal organizational structure and decision-making."
Sheryl Cababa Alexis OhThinking in systems to address climate with Sheryl Cababa
June 12, 2024
"This program has become the gateway drug for customer research for people who didn’t know its power or value before."
Melissa Schmidt Adam MenterHow UX Research Hit It Big in Las Vegas
June 4, 2019
"For screen reader users, you often need to build entirely new prototypes using systems like Microsoft Word or Google Docs to convey semantic information."
Sam ProulxPrototype Reviews, People With Disabilities, and You
October 1, 2021
"Leadership must plant the seeds and water the message repeatedly for long-term cultural change."
Mariah Hay Marina Martin Husani Oakley Eduardo OrtizBUILD: Discussion
June 14, 2018
"Fair is a choice, and we have better ones to make if we bring them into focus to build a better future."
Brendan JarvisIt was the Best of Times. It was the Worst of Times.
September 25, 2024
"Collaboration without ego is key to building the right product, not just what one's own interests are."
Craig Brookes Andreas Huebner Morgan Quinn"Just Make it Look Good" and Other Ways We're Misunderstood
June 11, 2021
