Vitaly Friedman is an author, the UX Lead with the European Parliament, and editor-in-chief of Smashing Magazine. On June 25, he will facilitate a workshop at ITX’s 2-day Product + Design Conference. In this episode of Product Momentum, Vitaly joins Sean and Dan to share his insights about tackling the unique challenges of UX design in enterprise-level environments.

Tune in to hear the following:

It’s OK to be a disruptor of legacy systems in enterprise organizations

“Legacy is like that ‘magical box’ that we’re afraid to touch,” Vitaly says. “No one really knows how it works, and the people who set it up decades ago are now gone and left with no proper documentation.”

But it’s OK to be a disruptor of legacy systems and the political hierarchies that created them as long as you show the value you can bring and approach your task with a risk management mindset. “Start with smaller projects; ask users and stakeholders to review your unfinished work; and always remember that your ‘disruption’ affects a lot of people who need that tool quite literally to do their work.”

Start small, build trust, and focus your vocabulary on the language of your stakeholders.

As part of your research, ask stakeholders to show you their product and to walk you through it. Listen carefully to the words they use to describe it – and how frequently those same words are used.

Says Vitaly: “You can get a better understanding of what’s important just by listening to how they talk about it and how much the features or workflows or ways of working mean to them as well.”

For humans, with humans, by humans.

Designing software is a people business, so Vitaly encourages UX professionals to “observe the relationships between stakeholders” so that you can learn about the people inside the organization who believe in and want to support UX initiatives. “There’s a good chance some UX projects benefited them and helped them be successful,” Vitaly adds.

When you find the people who deeply believe in UX, tell them the story about the project you’re working on. “Once you make them aware, they will move mountains for you and support your efforts,” he says.

Product + Design Workshop: How can UX designers welcome AI into their environment?

In his workshop at the ITX Product + Design Conference, Vitaly will introduce to attendees some of his recent experimental work.

“We designers expect a lot from AI, and we believe there’s a lot of things AI can do to help us build great products,” Vitaly says. “But the reality is that AI is really weird. We’re accustomed to software being rather predictable and reliable: if you click on a button, you get the result you’re expecting. But sometimes – like 10-15% of the time – AI can be unreliable.”

In the workshop, Vitaly will discuss “those little things” that are important to us designers – and make them better with assistance from AI.

ITX’s Product + Design Conference returns to Rochester, June 25-26. Check out the complete list of workshop facilitators and keynote speakers on our P+D Conference landing page!

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