Summary
In this panel, Jen, John, and Nancy share their experiences and advice for UX professionals operating within large organizations. John emphasizes the importance of building credibility early through small, demonstrable projects, while Jen underscores the need for patience and being comfortable with discomfort when challenging norms. Nancy discusses leveraging mentorship and sponsorship to overcome systemic barriers and grow impactful initiatives, exemplified by her work internationalizing Uber's design system. They address managing UX debt alongside innovative efforts by advocating portfolio strategies and systematic prioritization based on impact and feasibility. The conversation also explores the challenge of globalizing design without imposing Western ideals, urging designers to respect and integrate local cultures and learn from marginalized communities' resourcefulness. The panelists highlight the value of actionable meetings, post-mortems to improve processes, and looking beyond immediate goals to anticipate future needs. Overall, the talk provides pragmatic approaches to influencing enterprise design positively despite organizational and cultural complexities.
Key Insights
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Building credibility through small wins early in your career fosters long-term collaboration and influence.
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Being comfortable with discomfort and perceived mistakes can be a strategic asset in pushing difficult conversations.
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Finding mentors and sponsors who leverage their privilege can accelerate project success, especially for underrepresented voices.
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Post-mortem reviews with actionable takeaways help embed continuous improvement in product and design processes.
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Balancing UX debt and innovation can be managed via a portfolio approach that encourages a culture of forward-thinking vision.
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Using a matrix to evaluate importance versus difficulty guides prioritization of meaningful work over just interesting projects.
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Looking beyond immediate targets prevents 'target fixation' and encourages longer-term strategic planning.
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Internationalizing design systems requires starting small, empowering local teams, and ongoing stakeholder feedback to ensure ownership and relevance.
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Global UX must respect local cultures to avoid imposing Western-centric solutions and appreciate innovations from diverse communities.
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Systemization generally requires standardization but must be balanced with cultural customization, which demands organizational commitment and investment.
Notable Quotes
"You need to build credibility. It’s not enough to just state that you see a problem; people need to know you will do the work and push towards it."
"I’ve thrived on being wrong and making mistakes, even if I wasn’t really wrong. That perception helped me build credibility over time."
"Being comfortable with discomfort is a great way to stick with it, especially as someone who might be called out or told they’re wrong."
"We have a thing at Athena about positive mutual regard — sitting down with people to understand root causes for strange behaviors builds powerful bonds."
"Post-mortems focused on missed opportunities help make processes more systematic and ensure next time we do better."
"I care about three magic quadrants from now — I want the analysts chasing me, not me chasing documents."
"When you look at the target too closely, you miss what’s around it; focus longer term to avoid target fixation."
"Start with one country, build a pilot, empower the team, and collect ongoing feedback to scale international design efforts."
"Every culture has something great and some things to improve; we need to shift mindsets away from the idea that American ways are always best."
"If organizations want success globally, they must invest to customize designs for local cultures rather than standardize everything blindly."
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