Summary
How do you keep human needs balanced with those of a business, especially when the business is the largest power and gas company in the country? Gretchen Anderson is the Head of Design at PG&E, and she talks about how she's scaling what she's learned across an enterprise-level organization.
Key Insights
-
•
Enterprise environments often prefer predictable A-to-B-to-C workflows, which conflict with user-centered design's iterative, exploratory nature.
-
•
Features like satellite asset maps for field workers may never emerge without intentional user-centered design involvement.
-
•
Pair design—with peers across disciplines or perspectives—accelerates ideation and produces more resilient design solutions.
-
•
Designers often feel isolated and undervalued due to paranoia and lack of inclusion; proactive creation and sharing of deliverables helps secure their place at the table.
-
•
Design systems and pattern libraries are essential guardrails but require ambassadors or design operators to help teams adapt them effectively.
-
•
Designers’ unique fingerprints and problem-solving styles mean that even with the same inputs, outputs can validly differ among designers.
-
•
Storytelling and prototyping are powerful tools to influence stakeholders and shift conversations toward productive outcomes.
-
•
UX debt is sometimes necessary and should be managed collaboratively between designers, tech leads, and product owners as part of the release strategy.
-
•
Building authentic, facilitated relationships across the organization reduces designer isolation and elevates the perceived value of design.
-
•
Human-centered design includes designing the experience of working with the design team, not just the end-user product experience.
Notable Quotes
"Silicon Valley feels fast, but when the grid goes down, it can be catastrophic."
"That’s the kind of feature that never would have made it to the top of anyone’s backlog without design."
"Working in pixels, we still have fingerprints. You all have a style. That’s a great thing."
"Designers can be really paranoid and very precious."
"Pair design is about two perspectives coming together as peers to quickly try and evaluate ideas."
"Invite yourself to the table by bringing actual deliverables, like storyboards and prototypes."
"Prototyping is not about usability, it’s about exploring the idea."
"No wiki in the world is as good as somebody who can come and tell you how to bend the rules a little bit."
"I see designers fall back on being the defender of the user like a union boss, but that’s not your only responsibility."
"Human-centered design is not just about your end users, it’s about the humans in your team."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"The highest leverage thing you can do is design statements that capture the essence in ways that set sail a thousand ships."
John CutlerThe Alignment Trap
November 29, 2023
"Closing the distance is about connecting not only with customers but also between cross-functional team members."
Monty HammontreeThe Future of UX Research
December 3, 2020
"People said, ‘I get it’ when a peer explained how their day actually changed—not from top-down communication."
Matt StoneScaling Empathy, A Case Study in Change Management
June 11, 2021
"Don’t spend too much time trying to translate experience goals directly into business metrics; show the value of experience separately."
Gonzalo GoyanesDesign ROI: Cover a Little, Get a Lot
September 8, 2022
"We created new design system components and icons so sustainability info could be inserted consistently across touchpoints."
Amy ParnessScaling Sustainability: Complementary strategies that drive long-term success
May 29, 2025
"You are all very excited about the future of design ops because you are charting the course together."
Alana WashingtonTheme 3 Intro
October 1, 2021
"Humans need to override and dominate AI because machines have no context or experience."
Patrizia BertiniDesigning Within the Lines: How the EU AI Act Can Spark Better AI Innovation
December 11, 2025
"Sometimes researchers end interviews feeling like their head is going to burst from pressure and trauma."
Jane Reid Janice HannawaySelf-care in User Research
April 2, 2020
"Sometimes alignment work isn’t enjoyable, but it’s part of the job for design system success."
Nathan CurtisBeyond the Toolkit: Spreading a System Across People & Products
June 9, 2016
