Designing Complex Apps | NN/g Training Course (2024)

"Be prepared for a firehose."

John Tangney, Google

"This course is the single most useful resource I have found for designers working in complex enterprise contexts. It was like a therapy session, a sanity check and a a masterclass all rolled into one."

Claire Regan, Dell, Dublin, Ireland

"This course is part group therapy for enterprise designers and part actionable concepts and theories! I appreciated the opportunity to connect with folks facing similar challenges, and Page does a fantastic job breaking down concepts that can help designers approach and make decisions around complexity."

Joanna Hoge, Alteryx, Denver, CO

"If you are in an enterprise or B2B UX space, you NEED to take this course. This is the Enterprise/B2B UX content I've been looking for my entire career and I feel more prepared than ever to go back to work. I'm not even lying when I say this course was like group therapy for Enterprise/B2B UXers."

Jeffrey Shao, GE Gas Power, Atlanta, GA

"The content is very highly "specialized". Prepare for a hyper-focused deep-dive on a very specific scope of information."

Justin Trout, BrainGu, Portland, United States

"This was really helpful for those of us working with very complex apps. In fact, it made me feel like my app (Premiere Pro, After Effects) isn't so tough!"

Teresa Demel, Adobe, Seattle, WA, USA

"Great course to look past the UX that is consumer facing and industry leading to dig deep into the real world situations where simplification is not possible and give solutions to navigating and designing complex applications and programs that are the underlying support system for many industries."

Sierra Johnson, USAA, San Antonio, TX USA

"This is perfect fit for most GBS employees. I liked that for the first time I hear B2B language on UX trainings. Page understands our problems as he has faced them before."

Andrei, Procter & Gamble, San Jose, Costa Rica

"For anyone working in a specialized domain, this is a must-attend course. The content is directly relatable to the situations you'll encounter and you will walk away with the knowledge that can be used to immediately improve your tools and your way of thinking."

David D Meade jr, Eleven Peppers Studios, Severn, MD USA

"I would say "Take it, it's awesome, Kate rocks". Indeed I did benefit. I learned a ton, met people from all over the world, and I'm taking back loads of actionable insights to my day job. Exactly what I needed."

Gabe Mastey, Amazon Web Services, Vancouver, BC

"Take it! Really core concepts and framework to build strategies around."

Amy Shellhart, WellSky, Overland Park, KS, USA

"Be ready to take lots of notes! It's a very info heavy class and all of it is useful!"

Suriya Farrow-Harris, Encova Insurance, Columbus, OH; USA

"Awesome course with very helpful takeaways and perspectives on complex application design."

Nikos Kotsakis, notallbad, Berlin

"An eye-opening course. So many meaningful takeaways that allow to shift the mindset and focus on the specifics of the complex applications. Also, always great to cooperate with professionals in your domain, who go through the same struggles and have similar goals. great one!"

Kateryna, Tallinn

"I liked this course provided some additional perspectives on how to approach complex problems while providing real-world examples and suggestions on how to best handle them."

Hannah Coley, INCATech, Colorado Springs

"I really liked this class. Solid content quite well suited to gain professional and structured guidance, with good real examples of dos and dont's on how to perfect further the design for complex applications and tangled interactions."

Alex Wendpap, Berlin, Germany

"Great course. I loved how I can use what I learned here at work."

Cheng Li, FHLBank San Francisco

"I wish I would have taken that course earlier! Some parts acted like a confirmation to things I was assuming they are right only after struggling with designing a complex app in first place. But there were also parts that were totally new to me. It felt like a psychotherapy session for UX practitioners that helps one structure everything in their head!"

Myrto Koumoundourou, Products Up GmbH, Berlin, Germany

"This course was immensely valuable — it's so difficult to find resources for specialized domains and patterns for complex apps. This course was a perfect amount of overview with a deep dive into research methods not generally covered in UX courses and patterns you don't see in your everyday music app."

Jess Dillard, Riffyn, Oakland, USA

"This course was really informative and impactful and I'm sure it will take me months to unpack all the learnings but I really loved this special focus on complex apps and their users."

Louise Bolin, Capital One, Wilmington, USA

"I loved this course! I learned new useful techniques that I will be able to transfer to my current job."

Ivelisse Capellan-Heyer, Alaska Airlines, Seattle

"I immediately recommended the course to the rest of my team. The content was spot on for our work in the field of ERP design. The course gave me new ideas as well as gave validation for our old ways of working."

Anna-Mari, Helsinki, Finland

"I would recommend it for any person working on complex apps; my training's favorite topics are: transition novice user into expert, measuring satisfaction & summary of all pretty-nice patterns. This is the only course like that available on the market as far as I did my research. It is real useful knowledge, no trace of nonsense detected — that's cool. I also like that I had opportunity to meet people, who are sharing my experience of struggle with legacy, complex apps."

Joanna, Demant, Warszawa, Poland

"I thought this course was phenomenal. The material flowed in a logical order so that transitions felt seamless. The presentation and exercises were great. Overall, I feel like I can contribute some really concrete ways to handle some of the complex design challenges we face."

Candace Belako, UPMC Health Plan, Pittsburgh USA

"I loved this course. It gave me a breathe of fresh air into an area that can be very "muddy". A huge kudos to Kate for putting this course together."

Elliot Mayer, Button Inc, Victoria, Canada

"Kate Kaplan is an amazing instructor! Her delivery is nothing short of supernatural. The course material is extremely relevant, high quality and engaging."

Keith Kochajda, Detroit, USA

"Very insightful course to better manage and work with complex applications and systems. I see a lot of positive changes in my future!"

Zuzzette Foglio, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Tijuana, Mexico

"Liked the small workout groups. Gave me OPTIONS when straight UX methodologies won't work. In my world, UX is always messy and never has a single happy path. Now I can use options without feeling guilty."

Lisa Doyle, Tata Consultancy Services, Seattle, USA

"You get answers of what you have wondered when applying traditional UX methods. I've got frameworks and structures for my future work on designing complex apps."

Yuna Doksrød, Bouvet, Norway

"Provides the context and vocabulary to explore and address the issues related to designing user experiences for complex and specialised software. Well structured, deep knowledge and excellent examples delivered with a sense of fun."

Ken Bowman, acQuire Technology Solutions, Parth, Australia

"As designers we sometimes forget it's alright to build complex solutions in our quest to simplifying things. And, this course breaks it down so well and helps approach products with a "Oh, I didn't think of that!" approach.
I personally loved the content quality, the well designed frameworks, and the fact that my methods and systems approach was constantly challenged throughout the session with suggestions on better ways of solving complex problems. Kate does a brilliant job, and is nothing short of impressive! I'd recommend this course to experienced professionals who are looking to up-skill their interaction design practice. Cheers!"

Kasinatha Rao, Atlassian, Bengaluru, India

"The first day was knowledge consolidation for me, which was great, and I particularly appreciated the levels-of-complexity model that Kate explained. That's a useful rubric. Day two was chock full of useful information about interaction and design patterns, and I took a ton of notes. I expect to be using many of the course examples and concepts to help the engineering teams I work with reduce extraneous complexity in their applications."

Laura McNamara, Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM

"Totally worth to take! Besides the invaluable course materials, all of the extra sources shared in the presentation slide, discussion forum, and the QnA are very useful."

Vigor Arisandi Sasmito, Yi Zhao Consulting, Taipei, Taiwan

"This course was great in helping me find others who struggle with very domain-specific apps. It gave clear terminology to help me communicate different types of complexity, and Kate has gathered incredible and thorough research on complex applications with concrete examples. I can immediately apply many of these lessons to my work."

Molly Misek, OpsCompass, Omaha, United States

"I did like how complexity was explainied and techniques to improve already exsiting specialized applications, what UI mistakes to avoid and research methods to provide better understanding of user's domain space. I liked the excercises to help reinforce the presented information and openess in answering questions."

"I highly recommend this course! I learned so much that I have not learned anywhere else. The instructor was very clear and gave concrete real-world examples. There is so much I will be able to bring back to my present workplace."

Jessica Dee, SAP, Palo Alto, USA

"Love the class topics and instructor introduced the content in a very organized way. What I learned can be directly applied to my daily work as a UX designer."

Xiaohang Liu, Walmart, Bentonville, AR

"If you worked in UX for a while, this is the course for you. You will be exposed to concepts and methods that you're unlikely to have used before, and that will be of immense value in your day to day work."

Alexoiu, Accenture Interactive, Manchester, UK

"Great tips to learn how to navigate and manage complexity of projects instead of trying to solve the complexity itself."

Natalia Cudlip, VMware, Los Angeles, US

"I find it impressive how Kate managed to keep me engaged and listening through 7h of course from 5pm to 00am on an online event, really well done! The last hour was really difficult though in term of energy but still she kept me interested. I think having the video on helped a lot. The content of the course was very relevant and it was helpful to get some confirmation about our way of working, getting some new insights and a structure/framework to reflect on."

Caroline Demey, IlionX/ASML, Eindhoven, the Netherlands

"I would tell people that anyone has felt isolated, lost, or struggling to handle complex apps - to take this course. 30 minutes into the session I sighed a deep breath just knowing I wasn't the only one and that I'd be able to learn mechanisms to solve the issues. I feel better equipped to tackle these problems and empower my team."

Jen Rountree, Syntellis, Vancouver, WA, United States

"It was not only great to see that other people have the same problems, but also to get some hands-on tips and ideas to try out and improve."

Robin Goldberg, OMICRON electronics GmbH, Klaus, Austria

"This course was a good foundation for understanding what differentiates a standard app from a complex app and key considerations in designing for complex app users."

Liz Zivney, Milliman, Milwaukee, WI, USA

"I think this is a great course for anyone dealing with financial, medical, or any other industry that involved complex data where you don't always have access to users. Very informative. Good strategies and knowledge to share with my team and incorporate in my workflow."

Bob Burdekin, Allegis Group, Baltimore, MD, USA

"It was my first NN/g course and conference, and I can honestly say that I could not be happier with the course, its content and structure, organisation and delivery. It was thought-provoking, insightful and extremely actionable. I will strongly recommend it to my team members and to other UX practitioners in my network who work with complex apps in specialised domains. I'm eager to discuss at work how we might experiment with some of the tools and methods introduced during class. I think it will honestly prove invaluable to me (and my colleagues) in coming months, so thank you so much for all the time and effort you put into the course."

Ines Almeida, Feedzai SA, Lisbon, Portugal

"Highly recommend. Keep your eyes and ears open. Every second of the class has valuable information."

Christine Park, Schneider electric, Victoria BC Canada

"I was so used to hear about UX from a conventional point of view that I came to the conclusion that the work I was doing on a complex application couldn't benefit from all that knowledge. Until I attended the course! It was so refreshing to talk about UX from this particular perspective and to explore all the different ways to adapt conventional techniques to the special context of complex applications and their users. Can't wait to apply everything I learned :-)"

Eric Provost, Intact Financial Corporation, Montreal, Canada

"This course made me feel like I wasn't alone in the struggle of working on complex legacy software for a hyper-specific domain. The class was great and I would recommend it to anyone who works on complex software."

Amanda Michko-Bird, AGI, an Ansys Company, Malvern, PA, USA

"Extremely methodological and insightful course if you are working for a complex domain area. Tips: drink lots of coffee and make sure you are 100% focused in class."

Jessica Huang, MassMutual, Hong Kong

"Page does a great job of synthesizing and making digestible, highly complex Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) concepts. The broad reach of this topic is approached strategically, delivering useful and applicable insights and frameworks. It's a must-have class for those practitioners looking for a controlled vocabulary that they can use with stakeholders, identifying UX pain points, and establishing best practices for specialized app interfaces."

Christian Sabogal, Salesforce, Boston, MA

"I liked the fact that there is such a course teaching about complex apps. The course is dense in information which are truly relevant and teaches us on practical applications to tackle challenges and mistakes to watch out for."

Grace, Govtech Singapore, Singapore

"To those who are designing complex and specialized systems. I will highly recommend this course to you."

Xavier Ting, Singapore

"Fascinating course with highly relevant case examples. This course provides clear insights and strategies for how to tackle highly niche and complex app designs. Its such an asset to be armed with this knowledge and be able to cater to such niche areas, especially given that there's not a lot of information "in the wild" about how to tackle these types of problems."

Joel Louie, Curtin University, Perth, Australia

"If you are designing products for the workplace, you need to take this course because it will help prepare you for the challenges that are ahead. This course will give you practical tips that you can use on day one."

Jason Li, Northrop Grumman, Springfield, VA

"The course made me feel very seen in regards to the products that I research in specialized domains. I have not seen other courses out there that devote 100% of the focus to these types of applications. I could tell that a lot of time and research went into developing a course that would reflect the work environment of UX practitioners working on complex apps. The course had a great balance of naming the challenges that UX practitioners may face in the complex app/specialized domain world, while providing some new ways to think about approaching these challenges. I benefited from taking the course because I expanded my vocabulary and ability to express some of the larger usability issues I see on a regular basis with complex apps. I also benefited from the user research recommendations (cooperative usability testing was new to me, in particular), since I am a researcher. I would tell someone considering taking the course that there is a depth of understanding of the complex app/specialized domain space and that it is worth their time if they are working on similar apps."

Laura Egan, Pittsburgh, PA

"It's a great deep dive, very specific and useful - for people who ponder about the enormity of system designs and also specialists in the field."

Tarra, Standard Chartered Bank, Singapore

"Yes, it confirmed a lot of my struggles and gave me really good tools to explain and make decisions about complexity in a product."

Isabel Wiltenburg, Incentro, Amsterdam, Netherlands

"This can easily be one of the most mind-blowing and most enlightening course I've taken from NN/g. It is relevant to everything I do at work - but with a crystalized conceptual framework to abstract out what the complexity is/where it is from/approaches to tackle it. The abundant examples helped ground the learning easily and made the dense content easy to follow. Would highly recommend this for anyone working on large-scale conundrum - even if you already know it all, this still can be served as a great reminder. :)"

Bing-Hsun Wu, Lab49, New York City

"I'd say, go for it! It definitely lifts some weight off the shoulders just by externally validating the fact that it's not you who has problems figuring out the task, it's the fact that the task is complex and that standard approaches may not work for your work."

Alona Vinnyk, ESO, Austin, TX, USA

"I work in an area that deals with multiple complex workflows with different users, and this helped to shed light on different research activities and best design practices when designing for complex applications. Loved it!"

Rachelle Caparroso, USAA, Austin, Texas USA

"This course is really helpful that it breaks down various aspects of complexity. This provides a structural approach for me to analyze my design challenges. In terms of solutions, I especially like that the course not only covers how to expand upon or modify traditional research methods for specialized domains, but also provides interface design tips to combat common issues found in complex applications."

Yi-Ann Chen, Appian, Virginia, USA

"The concepts presented in this course are very concrete to complex domains, with clear examples and unique insights it was easy to relate and digest the content. I really appreciated the fact that all insights and examples come from actual user research, therefore the course instructor presented not only the examples but also the rationale of the insights, which is invaluable gained knowledge for me."

Paola Molina, Friedrichshafen, Germany

"I would say to people that even if you think you are creating a web app, especially if there is b2b/back office style rich interaction going on, consider this course. The principles are super relevant IMO."

Anup, DrDoctor, London, UK

"I really would recommend it. Most of this info is not presented in such a coherent way, with such thoughtful wording to describe the concepts, on any other place I have found on the internet! It has really given me great concepts to apply at my work."

Paul Middelkoop, Ordina, Amsterdam, the Netherlands

"The information given and the delivery is of highest quality compared to other UX related workshops."

Sylke Lopez, Dycom, Jupiter, FL, USA

"Would recommend this course as this is something you can walk away and use in your workplace."

Marlainna Sweetman, Stretto, Irvine

"A lot of useful info. It's nice to network with folks who share the same challenges with their work."

Bryan R. Hopple, JPMorgan Chase, Columbus

"For practitioners designing complex software (life sciences, engineering, government, healthcare, data modelling, etc.) this could be a lifesaver. Frameworks, methods, actionable insights and a ton of examples from research studies. This course exceeded my expectations big time. Simply fabulous!"

Paweł Halicki, Nielsen Global Media, Warsaw, Poland

"If you're working on complex apps this is the course for you."

Ioannis Belegrinis, Starttech Ventures, Athens, Greece

"The course is wonderful, would be really beneficial to designers and researchers working with enterprise solutions. Information is well-structured, with tons of examples you can use in your praxis.
Kate as a speaker is just fantastic! The way of engaging with the audience, jokes, intonation, everything...
Recommended to everyone!"

Uliana, Eleks, Ukraine

"This course is perfect for people who want to work with a big organization and for B2B products/services. This course gave a detailed knowledge about the design process of complex apps and tells the solutions for challenges that UX designers face."

Pooja Ganar, India

"This was a great course. I walked away really motivated to tackle my day-to-day challenges. It also felt great to learn that there are many practitioners out there struggling with the same problems, and the community we built will certainly be helpful in the future."

Aleksandra Lipovac, SysKit, Zagreb, Croatia

"I would recommend this course to anyone working in complicated business and software environment. It's full of tips on how to manage daily difficulties unique for this kind of work which you will not be able to find elswhere."

Iza, BNP Paribas Poland, Warsaw, Poland

"I am so glad I have taken this course. It was very engaging. In my current work, I work on generalist applications (consumer products, e-commerce mostly). I had chosen this course to give me the tools, the base knowledge to take on more complex projects (and new exciting challenges). And I do now feel more confident on that part. The only downside is that I have felt this course's activities were strongly built for practitioners who are currently working on complex applications and left out those who are not (like me) and who took this course out of interest. Overall it was great, I do not regret taking this course."

Julie Shukla, Buzz Brothers, Geneva, Switzerland

"Would recommend for it for sure. Really liked the combination between ui solutions and research solutions."

Amir Binenfeld, SentinelOne, Tel Aviv, Israel

"This course provided a lot of really helpful, practical advice for designing complex products for highly specialized users. This advice included anything from working in a domain you don't fully understand, to doing Enterprise level user research and adapting other methods, to helpful UI patterns."

Serena Jolley, VMware, South Jordan

"Take the course if you plan to improve any of your organizations products. The class will reinforce your methods, and you will walk away with knowledge to share."

Miran Grujic, National Archives, DC, USA

"I would recommend this course to anyone who works with complex or enterprise software. This course has strategies and adaptations to strategies that you won't find anywhere else."

Natalie Lapakko, Infinite Campus, Blaine, USA

"This is a course that provides the type of knowledge hard to find somewhere else, so I highly recommend it!"

Charise Sousa, UX Designer, Vancouver, Canada

"I would tell them to take it. It's very good and they will come away with great information."

David Ward, SEI, Oaks, PA

"I think it was a great course, full of useful and practical tips and content. Even if you are not working with high-complexity systems, you can benefit from a lot of the showed topics."

Luciana Terceiro, iZettle, Stockholm, Sweden

"I think the content provided was of a high quality and immediately could see benefits it would bring to my work."

Chris Wright, Maritech, London

"There is a treasure-trove of information and examples to arm yourself with to solve just about any challenge an application or stakeholders throw at you."

Robert Dudley, BeyondTrust, Maumelle

"I would suggest to go without hesitation. Lots of learning and things that were unknown but right in front of us."

Harsh Solanki, NICE Systems, Pune, India

"I think that anyone in their career at any point in time should take this course. I have shared it with my UX team lead."

Jovani Occomy, Siemens PLM, Madison, United States of America

"Outstanding content, a very much needed framework for analysing an often neglected sphere of UX design. I am looking forward to get more insights from the precious work of the instructor."

Davide Vignes, Yara, Berlin, Germany

"A must have course for anyone working with specialized domains like B2B, mostly to know that you are not alone! This course gave me tools to helped me understand how to test designs, and many ideas and tips for best practices on how to approach the UI and experience of a complex app."

Maya, Onapsis, Boston, MA, USA

"There are very few events, articles, or courses for designers that focus on working in enterprise environments or designing complex applications. This course fills a gap, and it does it well. I believe that whether you come from a theoretical or a practical background, you will benefit greatly from this course. If you come from a practical background, you may in particular benefit from the thorough introduction to theoretical principles and the encouragement to think critically. If you come from a theoretical background, you will be inspired by the instructor's approach and own ideas, and you will benefit greatly from the discussion of how the principles can be applied to practical design work."

Charlotte Claussen, Self-employed, London

"I really liked the course! Super rich content well structured with useful examples and detailed explanations!"

Maria Chiara Palli, Geely Auto, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

"This was the course I was most looking forward to, & it did not disappoint. Topics were at the perfect level of granularity to provide guiding principles without bogging discussion down in every detail. Also, just having the opportunity to connect with others & recognize the difficulties inherent to our work & systems was therapeutic. It was an emotionally moving moment for me, & it was clear many attendees felt the same."

Seth Bro, Alteryx, Portland, OR, USA

"This was a fantastic course and the instructor was great, I learned a lot today, and I also gained the ability to discuss some approaches with greater knowledge. Great amount of interaction with the chat, this session in particular really stood out to me as the most communal I have had this week, even though there were only two breakouts."

Jay Price, JSP Creative, Cardiff, UK

"It was great for someone like me who doesn't have any formal training in UX. I feel empowered to take on the more complex problems my product has - and have some real-world solution ideas."

Annie Rimbach, Boston, MA

"Definitely take this course if you are working on complex applications. The patterns presented can jump-start the accumulation and dissemination of expertise and decision-making when designing or evaluating applications."

Damian O'Malley, ServiceNow, San Diego, California

"The course is very educational, information-dense and full of examples. I found it useful to take handwritten notes during the session even though the materials were provided for remembering better and capturing more info. Very useful course!"

Tena, Talksome, Netherlands

"I have to say that this course 100% aligned on the problems that I face as a designer within a complex problem space. I really appreciated the run down of the advice, guidance, and best practices. It was also really nice to meet other folks who are working in VERY DIFFERENT but EQUALLY COMPLEX areas. So cool!"

Anna L, ServiceNow, San Diego, USA

"Highly recommend if you work in any complex products that are data heavy or have a set of specialized users! Page was a great instructor and had great examples to go over concepts and frameworks to handle complex apps moving forward."

Sam Morris, Philadelphia, USA

Kate Kaplanis Nielsen Norman Group's Insights Architect. She specializes in the application of human-centered design and research practices to enterprise UX challenges. With over 15 years in UX, Kate has extensive experience in bothconducting research andhelping teams understandand applyuser insights to overall business strategy.

Page Laubheimer is a Senior User Experience Specialist with Nielsen Norman Group. He helps organizations focus on delivering outstanding user experience in order to achieve their strategic goals. He combines his expertise in website usability with experience managing a team of designers and developers to successfully implement UX best practices across a range of platforms.

Rachel Krause is a Senior User Experience Specialist with Nielsen Norman Group. Her areas of expertise include storytelling, UX in agile, design thinking, scaling design, and UX leadership. She has also planned and conducted research on careers, UX maturity, and intranets for clients and practitioners in numerous industries.