Why enterprise solutions don’t have to be awkward
Christian Vonscheidt (Head of Product Design, UX Writing, Content Design), Thomas Schluchter (Principal Product Designer, Retail Core), and Hertje Brodersen (Product Design Manager, zDirect) share their highlights from their zLab talk on B2B product design.
zLab Talks bring together tech experts from across Zalando. The first to feature Product Design involved a panel from some of our Business-to-business (B2B) and Business-to-employee (B2E) teams. Our panel shared their views on the challenges and opportunities of the B2B space, and why those currently working in Business to Consumer (B2C) design might seriously consider jumping ship. The full talk, including audience Q&A is hosted here. But here we share highlights from the talk.
Designed for people
Consumers know Zalando as an online store dedicated to fashion, beauty, and lifestyle products. But brands, retailers and Zalando employees get to see another side of the business. They interact with a complex landscape of tools and services built to bring an unmatched fashion selection onto the platform. Our job is to design for those people. From global brands like Nike to a local one-person shop selling sustainable socks, we interact with all types of retailers and fashion brands. Our objective? Deliver a platform that helps partners grow their business on Zalando. More than a third of the nearly 125 Product Designers in our community is dedicated to B2B and B2E.
Why such a big investment? Because businesses are people too. And people need and deserve good design. B2B tools in the most part have not had much design love. That’s slowly changing with products like Slack, Miro or Asana proving that productivity tools can be polished and fun to use. We want to similarly raise the bar and lead the way in our own highly complex field. What this involves, and why we’re so passionate about realizing this at Zalando is what we want to share with you.
B2B versus B2C?
Although there’s a lot that’s distinctive about designing in the B2B space, there’s also a lot that it has in common with B2C product design.
- The attitude is the same — both demand a problem-solving mindset.
- The goal is the same — create impact for the people (and brands) engaging with your product.
- Empathy is still a key ingredient, as is stakeholder management.
- And the toolkit is the same — double diamond process, design thinking, design systems, etc.
Anyone moving from B2C would find all these things familiar. So what’s unique or different?
First of all, you’re designing for productivity, rather than delight. With enterprise tools, your users generally haven’t chosen to use the product, it’s an everyday necessity. But it doesn’t mean it has to be dull, tiresome or awkward. There’s a bigger opportunity to enhance these interactions, turning an everyday necessity into a frictionless, painless experience.
You’re designing for empowerment. The stakes are high, in that bad design can be ruinous for business (your partner’s business as well as your own longer term). While B2C designs for moments of truth that can make or break a customer relationship, we design for people to get the best out of themselves and out of their working day.
And you’re designing for long-term partnerships. Focusing on design strengthens the mutual benefits of our business relationships, providing thoughtful insights, and useful interventions that help partners run their own businesses better. In research there’s a real feeling that you are on the same side and working towards the same goal (arguably more than when conducting B2C research). Talking to partners helps improve the platforms and tools for their benefit. That can be really satisfying.
B2B design practice
So what does this mean in terms of design practice? Challenges can be more complex, due to dependencies, restrictions, and often legacy tech. B2B design is a great playground for analytical thinkers who like grappling with big, and sometimes systemic, problems. If you like puzzles, you’ll love B2B!
You’re also designing for a very diverse range of users, with different levels of tech literacy, and different types and scale of team setup. You can’t just restrict it to two personas, and neatly design for those. That’s just not possible here.
If we were to sum up the big challenge of designing for a large part of the B2B space it’s that human-centred design hasn’t really arrived here yet. But that’s also the big opportunity for problem solvers who want to be part of a mission to change that. At Zalando, we want to create a consumer-grade experience for enterprise tools. So that everyone can get away from repetitive tasks, and grow their business with less effort, and a lot more enjoyably!
Raising maturity in B2B and B2E design
One of the reasons we’re all so passionate about that B2B design mission, is because we’ve witnessed the design maturity gain momentum quite rapidly at Zalando.
One example of this is how we’re using design systems to create consistency in the experience we deliver for our partners on zDirect. We couldn’t really leverage what we had in the B2C space because the use cases were massively different. We started with a small library of important components, so teams could build new features quickly, but also consistently.
As our platform is getting more sophisticated, we’re integrating new elements for visualizing information, and different types of messaging, promoting growth opportunities or ways to enhance their experience with us. And because we’re introducing new visual elements that move beyond just tables and grids, there’s finally much more opportunity for the Zalando brand to shine through as well.
We’re also raising our game in terms of content design, developing tone of voice guidelines and content strategies to communicate more clearly and effectively with business partners. That’s often low priority in the B2B space, which can be quite jargon-heavy. But if you have a human-centred approach, designing with words is another way to humanize interactions and engage more powerfully as a brand.
It’s been quite a journey, and there’s still a long and interesting road ahead as we follow our ambition to build a complex and scalable platform while also maintaining a certain level of velocity. B2B is an important driver for growth for Zalando, so we’re constantly looking to bring more partners of all types and sizes onto the platform. That only works if we remove barriers and help partners run their business as autonomously as possible. To do this we need to be increasingly diligent in our craft and processes, and ensure that our maturity keeps pace with the scale of our growth and of our ambitions. Bringing the right talent on board is key to achieving this.
You’ll fit right in if…
As you can see, we’re all pretty passionate about the big design world that exists beyond B2C. If you’re currently in that space, and ready to tackle some new and different challenges, then this might be a change worth considering. So our parting comments sum up what this might involve. You’ll fit right in if:
- You enjoy diving into complex flows.
- You’re comfortable with high levels of abstraction.
- You have an eye for opportunities to simplify without oversimplifying.
- You don’t panic if you’re outside a visual design tool for a while.
- You can sell design and frame design decisions in business terms.
- You have a knack for systemic design.
- You have the patience to see UX maturity grow over time.
- You want to make people and businesses successful.
- You enjoy upskilling your collaborators in different disciplines.
- You’re proud of creating things that help a few people a lot.
- You like working with empathic, talented and motivated people
If this sounds like you, then take a look at some of the B2B Product Design positions currently open. Or feel free to reach out…
Senior or Principal Product Designer
