Log in or create a free Rosenverse account to watch this video.
Log in Create free account100s of community videos are available to free members. Conference talks are generally available to Gold members.
Surviving Your UX Career in Enterprise Design
Summary
If you’re just getting started in your UX career and find yourself in an enterprise environment, how can you face some of the unique challenges of practicing UX design? What if I'm not a domain expert in my new field? What happens if my team asks me to deliver something they want, but come up with something I think they really need? What if my organization doesn't have a good process for UX work? We'll discuss how to deliver professional work without all the resources at your disposal. Learn strategies to tap into your company’s people, processes, and data to shore up the quality of your UX practice.
Key Insights
-
•
Enterprise UX designers often work outside their domain expertise and must quickly build knowledge through internal experts and customer-facing roles like support and sales.
-
•
Maintaining a glossary of domain-specific jargon helps validate assumptions and align project terminology with user expectations.
-
•
Delivering exactly what is asked, such as a simple checkbox, builds trust and respects team deadlines, even if you see opportunities for bigger improvements.
-
•
Proposing larger redesigns as separate future ideas enables creative expression without jeopardizing immediate deliverables.
-
•
Documenting UX processes and templates in a shared Wiki increases transparency and accelerates onboarding for new team members.
-
•
Setting clear milestones with project plans and demonstrating past project timelines helps manage stakeholder expectations around delivery speed.
-
•
Early and frequent solicitation of candid negative feedback prevents shipping subpar designs and reduces costly fixes later.
-
•
UX designers act as connective tissue in enterprise teams by educating stakeholders, facilitating collaboration, and bridging knowledge gaps.
-
•
Explaining the rationale behind design decisions (the why) fosters understanding and reduces defensiveness among stakeholders.
-
•
Measuring success in enterprise UX includes customer satisfaction, usage metrics, and tracking complaints to prioritize impactful fixes.
Notable Quotes
"Start knocking on doors immediately. There are people at your company who are domain experts and it’s your job to find them."
"Your fresh eyes are actually an asset. Question why things are done a certain way and what jargon means."
"If someone asks you for a cup of coffee, here’s the cup of coffee. You did it. But always have proposals on the side for more."
"Bad news does not improve with age. As soon as you get a whiff that something isn’t right, jump and fix it."
"Give a why of why you’ve made this design decision. It helps your team understand and reduces defensiveness."
"You are a contractor for your team. They want to know when the thing is done and that you delivered thoroughly."
"Designing in enterprise means facilitating conversations and educating your teams because many stakeholders don’t speak design."
"Tracking complaints and fixing things immediately, even if it’s just one person, is a mark of good UX impact."
"Create a UX brief with meetings and milestones so your PM knows where they need to be involved and where they don’t."
"Leading your path through ambiguity as a designer sometimes means teaching younger PMs how to work with you."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"There’s a huge proportion of product decisions being made without any user insights, based on assumptions."
Caroline VizeThe State of UX: Five Lessons from 2021 to Accelerate Digital Experience in 2022
March 9, 2022
"The international design government community started by reaching out individually via Twitter to people in governments around the world."
Kara KaneCommunities of Practice for Civic Design
April 7, 2022
"User research is really only part of the information schema that we’re talking about."
Jon Fukuda Ellie KryslDesign Planning and Management Support
October 3, 2023
"You can leave a legacy in three minutes by giving a connection or sharing an insight—it doesn’t have to be grand."
Mark TempletonCreating a Legacy: the ultimate experience
June 9, 2017
"We as designers are expert pattern finders and observers of human behavior, which is key in this work."
Jim KalbachPeace is waged with sticky notes: Mapping Real-World Experiences
June 14, 2018
"You can connect tools like Zapier or Integromat to Coda packs to automate processes and integrate with external systems."
Scott StephensThe Next Generation in DesignOps Toolsets
July 28, 2022
"If you’re not the solution, you’re the problem."
Cheryl PlatzCollaborative Creativity through Improv
November 7, 2018
"Nudge to me now is much more about wiggle it and see what happens rather than expecting exact outcomes."
Jen BriselliLearning Is The Engine: Designing & Adapting in a World We Can’t Predict
April 16, 2025
"We set a two-year goal to advise leadership on top issues for annual planning, even though we hadn’t figured out all the steps."
Mac SmithMeasuring Up: Using Product Research for Organizational Impact
March 12, 2021
Latest Books All books
Dig deeper with the Rosenbot
What challenges do AI hallucinations present, and how should designers handle factual reliability?
What are best practices for new designers to learn AI by building real projects rather than experiments?
How does AI create a reasoning gap between generated content and human intention in learning design?