Theme 1: Discussion
Lada Gorlenko
Senior Director of Research at MURAL
Sharbani Dhar
Program Design Lead, Australia Post
Sébastien Malo
UX Research and Design Manager, CN
Rob Mitzel
DesignOps and Enablement Team Supervisor, Ford Motor Company
Ivana Ng
Director of Product, Nava PBC
Michal Anne Rogondino
Founder & CEO, Rocket Communications, Inc.
Summary
Key Insights
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Invest in operations early in a company’s growth to build a strong foundation for UX and product success.
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Interacting extensively at peer levels can be as or more effective than immediately engaging top executives.
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Usability testing in the real context of users is critical to uncovering actionable insights pre-launch.
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Qualitative user feedback and anecdotal success stories often resonate more than formal metrics in early UX advocacy.
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Existing business metrics may need to be questioned and replaced with more meaningful measures based on user behavior.
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Creating safe forums and mentorship supports junior practitioners in building confidence to engage stakeholders.
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Ongoing stakeholder education sustained through shared analytics and direct user feedback channels builds empathy and support.
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Cross-organizational partnering helps spread UX adoption, but organizational stovepipes remain a challenge.
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Embedding evangelism and teaching as part of day-to-day UX work drives steady culture change.
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Compromises in delivery are acceptable, but never at the expense of achieving core business goals with UX.
Notable Quotes
"Operations tends to be something companies only think about when they are scaling rapidly, but investing early is essential."
"You can’t really advocate for UX or move an organization forward without interacting with your team and business colleagues."
"Junior team members don’t have to talk directly to executives; working effectively with peers can create grassroots buy-in."
"Simply asking stakeholders what success looks like for them in a project is a powerful way to start meaningful conversations."
"We can’t complain about not having a seat at the table if we don’t offer one of our own."
"The ultimate measure is bringing value so people invite you back to work with them again and again."
"If your users are happy, that anecdotal feedback often carries more weight early than quantitative metrics."
"Field usability testing showed stakeholders immediately how much value UX can add by catching issues before deployment."
"Stakeholders start demanding better digital experiences at work because they expect the same quality they have at home."
"We never compromise on the business goals, but how we achieve them can be flexible and pragmatic."
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