Enterprise Storytelling Sessions
Summary
- Chris Chandler, Director of Product Strategy, Philosophie - Kim Gausepohl, UX Designer, Rackspace - Brianna Koch, User Experience Designer, AppFolio - Patrick Leahy, Senior Designer, DesignMap - Jesse Livingston, User Experience Researcher, LinkedIn - Jana Sedivy, Founder and Principal, Authentic Insight - Kit Unger, Director of User Experience, Smartsheet
Key Insights
-
•
Simplifying complex UX heuristics into clear, actionable principles helps teams adopt and defend design decisions more effectively.
-
•
Early and frequent collaboration with clients is crucial to avoid project derailment and to maintain momentum.
-
•
Design teams must sometimes take ownership of tasks beyond their formal roles to keep projects on track.
-
•
Developers prioritize product delivery and stability over UX improvements, requiring UXers to build trust patiently.
-
•
Understanding users’ emotions—like anxiety and scrutiny—can reveal crucial product design needs beyond features.
-
•
Designing for customers leaving a service is as important as onboarding, countering common business biases.
-
•
Imposter syndrome is common in UX; honest, empathetic mentoring is more comforting than empty reassurance.
-
•
Accurate estimates of complex projects are impossible; focus should be on managing risk and updating plans.
-
•
Estimates must never be mistaken for commitments to avoid unrealistic expectations and stress.
-
•
Building long-term trust with engineers depends on showing competence, admitting errors, communicating often, and picking battles wisely.
Notable Quotes
"That sounds like your process. What's your guidance system?"
"We UXers tend to make things sound a lot more complicated than they really are."
"We dug this hole ourselves by never asking how the client delivers designs after we hand them over."
"UX design is really about producing usable software, not just pretty deliverables."
"Why wouldn't we design a fabulous cancellation process for customers who no longer want to be our customers?"
"People remember beginnings and ends of experiences better than the middle."
"If you ever feel like you can't do this job or you're in over your head, it's totally normal."
"Estimates are guesses, not prophecies, and the riskiest parts deserve the most attention."
"Admitting you’re wrong is the most efficient way I know of building trust."
"Simple, basic, consistent actions over time deliver big results when working with engineers."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"Short-term learnings kind of roll into long-term ones as you iterate and build on historical findings."
Taylor Jennings Joe Nelson Alex KnollRepository Retrospective: Learnings from Introducing a Central Place for UX Research
March 9, 2022
"There are over 7 billion futures of right now."
Nicole AleongFuture Orientations to Everyday Life: Futures Anthropology as a Methodology
March 26, 2024
"Adobe’s Kickbox is a fantastic professional development tool, but it doesn’t drive new lines of business."
Jeff GothelfInnovation Studios: the Engines of Enterprise Experimentation
May 14, 2015
"Accessibility is more of a process than a result; it starts at the very beginning of product development with research including disabled users."
Saara Kamppari-MillerDesignOps for Inclusive Design and Accessibility
May 26, 2022
"Design ops folks meet the habit of catering so much to everybody’s increasingly trivial whims that it takes us away from the real meaty ops work."
Tess DixonC'mon Get Happy
September 29, 2021
"Being intentional about how we spend our time is the purest manifestation of our values and our value."
Liam ThurstonWhy Your Design Team Is Quitting, And How To Fix It
June 10, 2022
"People care about titles way too much. I had a guy whose business card said star-bellied sneak—love that."
Ian SwinsonDesigning and Driving UX Careers
June 8, 2016
"One researcher per team for at least three days a week was considered an outrageous luxury at GDS in 2013."
Leisa ReicheltOpening Keynote: Operating in Context
November 7, 2018
"At Sage Sure, we build paved roads so people can choose to drive on them or carve their own path."
Rachael Greene Alison DavisBuilding a Design Ops Practice that Really Works (Most of the Time)
October 2, 2025
