This is an article I wrote for the Guidewire Design Blog.
Designing usable, intuitive interfaces in any context is difficult, but enterprise software — large-scale systems used by businesses to manage operations such as accounting, people management, or customer data — presents unique challenges. During my own UX career, I’ve worked in both consumer and enterprise environments. Here are my observations of common challenges faced by enterprise UX professionals.
Adopting a Product Mindset
Experience in web design or agency work, while useful, is not sufficient preparation for the enterprise software world. To succeed, designers in enterprise organisations need a product mindset. They must understand how tech companies build products for business customers, and how UX design can impact that process to achieve positive outcomes for those customers.
Successful enterprise product designers are intimately familiar with the software product lifecycle, from discovery through development to release and evaluation. Along with techniques from design thinking, they understand core product management concepts like product-market fit, value proposition, technical feasibility, and payment terms. They know how product development and adjacent teams interoperate — for example, in agile methodologies.
The enterprise designer’s role encompasses far more than creating and handing over Figma assets. They must deeply explore their problem space in a world where access to end users is not always easy. They collaborate regularly and effectively, and make ongoing, incremental changes. They are patient and persistent, recognising that design projects may not always advance to development. They understand that the design process sometimes feels cyclical, even regressive, and alway requires systems thinking.
When hiring designers for enterprise software roles, I’ll typically ask, “Do you attend sprint demos?” or “Tell me how you collaborate with your PM partner” or “How do you feel about working on the same UI for months if not years?” These sorts of questions help me discover whether the candidate has a product mindset.
Navigating the Enterprise Environment
Enterprise products are developed for a range of business customers, of varying sizes, operating in different markets, each with individual requirements. Most of these organisations are multi-layered, with complex business processes, many stakeholders, and diverse users.
Designers must understand how their customers’ organisations work, as well as how the designer’s own organisation works with those customers. They must be familiar with the needs and motivations of key personas and how they interact. Business users typically have specialised roles and expert task flows, requiring designers to have a detailed grasp of mental models.
Since no two business customers are the same, a one-size-fits-all approach won’t work. Designers must be comfortable operating in a fluid space, where customisations and configurations are the norm; where one user’s interface rarely looks identical to another’s.
Tip: Make friends with PMs, subject matter experts, engineers and testers! They hold the keys to the weird and wonderful use cases and edge cases you’ll need to address.
Overcoming Barriers to User Recruitment
Makers of enterprise software often struggle to recruit users for feedback. Unlike in consumer UX, the pool of potential candidates is limited. For participants to contribute meaningfully to research, expert domain knowledge will likely be required.
Designers may also need to seek the permission of Customer Success Managers or Account Managers, and clear hurdles in the customers’ IT department, before approaching end users.
Initially, this extra organisational layer might seem like an obstacle. However, over time, designers can benefit from cultivating relationships with colleagues in customer-facing roles. These partners offer valuable subject matter expertise and informed insights.
When access to end users wasn’t readily available, I’ve often recruited customer-connected staff as proxies for usability testing or other studies.
I’ve used many other workarounds to overcome the user recruitment challenges of enterprise software, including inviting Business Analytics undergraduates to test a data viz prototype. While we didn’t find participants matching our exact user profile, we nevertheless gathered rich, relevant usability feedback. (And the students appreciated their small gift voucher incentives!)
Overrepresentation of Go-To Users
Designers of enterprise software and their PM counterparts must take care that they are considering the broader user base, avoiding a disproportionate focus on a minority of personas or use cases, or input from just one customer.
This imbalance occurs when customer interactions are dominated by designated points of contact — such as admins or power users — skewing feedback and use cases toward the specific needs of these individuals.
Maintaining strong relationships with designated representatives, such as the customers’ Business Analysts and power users is essential, but it’s equally important to engage a broader array of end users and organisations.
This may require some creativity. For example, during a series of customer site visits, I once coordinated with my PM colleagues to separately engage our regular contacts in planning sessions. This arrangement freed the UX team to conduct desk-to-desk usability tests with other employees, ensuring more diverse and representative user feedback.
Managing Diverse Stakeholders
Stakeholder management is crucial for projects with wide impact. Designers must address diverse groups, including their UX, product, and engineering peers, various customer-facing teams, key leadership, and the customers themselves!
Empathy is key. Understanding other stakeholders’ perspectives, truly listening to their concerns, and making them feel heard will help gain their buy-in to proposals.
After soliciting feedback, it’s essential to update all stakeholders on progress. Keeping them informed — even though not all suggestions can be implemented — will increase their support and engagement.
I learned the value of stakeholder alignment the hard way: I once led the UX redesign of an enterprise analytics application, a project closely supported by the CEO, who even attended our weekly sprint demos. Despite this backing, when we introduced our work to other teams, we encountered significant resistance. Our colleagues, who had felt shut out of the process, found fault with the most minor details, and resisted the project’s roll-out. From then on, I made sure to involve stakeholders earlier to ensure a broader sense of ownership and a more successful implementation.
In a Nutshell
Working in enterprise UX is challenging but rewarding. It offers designers a chance to develop crucial skills — like problem-solving, relationship-building, and resilience.
Success in this field requires determination, resilience, a product mindset, skill in managing diverse stakeholder relationships, and a thorough understanding of the enterprise landscape.
And a love for UX design doesn’t hurt!