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
"You either give money as an unprofessional civilian or you do your job and offer professional services to help the crisis."
Xenia Adjoubei Sean BruceEmpowering Communities Through the Researcher in Residence Program
March 29, 2023
"We are no longer just a collection of cars, we are a focused racing team ready to hit the track."
Tamara KartoziiaThink global, adapt local: how service design accelerated B2B market entry by 6 months
November 20, 2025
"MidJourney’s dataset reflects stereotyped images because it’s based on internet image results without specific instruction."
Jay BustamanteNavigating the Ethical Frontier: DesignOps Strategies for Responsible AI Innovation
October 2, 2023
"Anticipation involves preparatory actions to manage uncertainty about future conditions."
Nicole AleongFuture Orientations to Everyday Life: Futures Anthropology as a Methodology
March 26, 2024
"When I started out, I knew nothing about digital sustainability."
Nick LewisDesigning and building low-carbon websites independently
November 18, 2025
"I recently observed a director of engineering talking to a content strategist about what they were both seeing because they were both in the actual physical room at the same time."
Vicky Teinaki Michele Marut Tim ParmeeShort Take #3: UX/Product Lessons from Your Industry Peers
December 6, 2022
"The alternate to engaging with conflict is suffering quietly or accumulating conflict debt."
Laura WeissTurn Down the Heat: 3 Ways to Handle Conflict in the Moment
November 20, 2024
"We model context of use as knowledge graphs with tasks, sub-task goals, task objects—all linked in relations."
Joerg Beringer Thomas GeisScaling User Research with AI: Continuous Discovery of User Needs in Minutes
June 10, 2025
"Facilitation is part setting the stage and part performing on it."
Shelby SwitzerMaking Space for Community Knowledge-sharing in a Distributed World
December 10, 2021
