Summary
A highlight of the conference every year, the Storytelling Sessions are a set of five-minute talks from enterprise professionals who share their challenges, opinions, failures and successes. Here are the storytellers for Enterprise Experience 2019: - Stephanie Albright, Experience Designer, a story about cleaning bathrooms - Spencer Icasiano, Product Designer II / UX Researcher, Care.com, a story about transitions - Malia Nagle, Director, UX Research, PayPal, a story about two apologies - Laura Nash, Senior UX Designer, Boston Consulting Group, a story about personas who think for themselves - Jenn Noinaj, UX Designer, U.S. Digital Service, a story about stereotypes - Ilona Posner, UX Consultant, a story about keyholes - Malini Rao, Senior Manager, UX, Kronos Inc., a story about a fight
Key Insights
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Storytelling in UX has evolved from being novel to essential for engagement and conveying user needs.
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Highly specific stories create stronger universal connections and emotional resonance.
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Organizational ‘keyholes’ limit understanding and cause unforeseen conflicts for UX practitioners.
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Professional UX skills don’t directly translate to personal communication challenges like parenting.
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Adapting to new cultures follows emotional stages: excitement, frustration, acceptance, and adjustment.
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Persistent collaboration can overcome deep organizational resistance to UX changes.
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Offering unwelcome user research feedback requires careful partnership and sometimes vulnerability.
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Dynamic, evolving personas modeled after role-playing character sheets can better reflect real user behavior.
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Authentic self-expression and embracing identity can unlock personal and professional growth.
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Apologies that acknowledge faults and articulate lessons learned can transform strained work relationships.
Notable Quotes
"The more specific a story gets, the more universal the themes are felt by everybody."
"Outside of our keyholes lies information that we’re completely oblivious to that can come to haunt us."
"No matter how good I think I am at my job, it doesn’t make me a good parent."
"When you accept differences and adjust, you can learn what you’re capable of."
"Make an incredible experience credible — that was the organizational directive to UX."
"It’s never all or nothing — product success must balance user needs and business constraints."
"I should have brought you along on this journey instead of scheduling a big meeting — I was wrong."
"Personas need minds of their own that push back, not perfectly behaved models."
"Queerness taught me that if I didn’t like the rules, I could change the game."
"Apologizing is the most magical healing restorative gesture human beings can make."
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