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Enterprise software often degrades into confusing complexity as features accumulate over time. Rhiannon Bell advocates hiring designers with consumer product backgrounds to redesign enterprise workflows. Applying consumer design standards to Google Ads helped transform highly technical, manual auction mechanics into simplified, goal-driven systems like Performance Max that hide complexity behind clean user objectives.
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Build products on simple, foundational concepts rather than complex, rigid features. These core building blocks can then be combined and layered, leading to emergent complexity that allows the product to scale and serve diverse needs without being overwhelming by default.
The "Owner's Delusion" is the inability to see your own product from the perspective of a new user who lacks context. You forget they are busy, distracted, and have minimal intent. This leads to confusing UIs. The antidote is to consciously step back, "pretend you're a regular human being," and see if it still makes sense.
Robbie Stein's product-building framework focuses on three pillars: 1) Go deep on user motivation (Jobs To Be Done). 2) Use data to dissect problems with rigor. 3) Prioritize clear, intuitive design over novel but confusing interfaces. Humility is the foundation for all three.
Don't design solely for the user. The best product opportunities lie at the nexus of what users truly need (not what they say they want), the company's established product principles, and its core business objectives.
The common B2B goal of a "consumer-grade" simple interface is misguided. Complex business processes require powerful tools. The designer's job is not to hide this complexity but to make it understandable and controllable for the user.
The objective of user experience design isn't to build a feature-rich interface, but to remove as many barriers as possible between the user and their fundamental goal. Using Uber Eats as an example, the app succeeds by making the interface disappear, returning the user to the simple act of "searching for food."
The line between B2B and B2C user experience has vanished. Users expect the same seamless, elegant digital interactions in their professional tools as they get from consumer apps. A modern design system enables B2B companies to deliver this consumer-grade experience, even with complex product catalogs.
Despite major advancements showcased at Google I/O, the sheer volume and confusing naming of new features create a "dizzying" experience for users. This complexity acts as a significant barrier to adoption, even for sophisticated customers trying to upgrade their plans.
Professionals use sophisticated consumer apps like Nest and Ring at home, creating a powerful psychological contrast with their clunky work software. Startups can win by delivering a consumer-grade experience, which makes the product feel modern and intuitively superior to legacy enterprise tools.
To create transformational enterprise solutions, focus on the core problems of the key buyers, not just the feature requests of technical users. For healthcare payers, this meant solving strategic issues like care management and risk management, which led to stickier, higher-value products than simply delivering another tool.
