VMware

Scaling participatory design to de-risk enterprise Identity and Access Management decisions

Overview

VMware Cloud Services needed to redesign its Identity and Access Management (IAM) experience—a complex, high-risk domain where usability failures have serious operational consequences.

Traditional one-off usability testing wasn't sufficient. The team needed continuous customer input across multiple design iterations to avoid costly missteps.

The challenge

VMware had to decide how to redesign IAM while balancing:

Highly technical user needs
Multiple admin roles and mental models
Rapid iteration without fragmenting feedback

The risk: shipping an experience that technically worked but failed to align with how enterprise customers actually manage access.

My role

I designed and led an 8-week participatory research program, engaging customers as ongoing collaborators rather than episodic test participants.

I was responsible for:

Defining the longitudinal research strategy
Recruiting and managing a large, engaged customer cohort
Synthesizing weekly insights with product and design
Translating customer input into actionable design direction

What we did

We recruited 135 IAM customers from a pool of 3,000 and engaged them weekly over eight weeks, allowing the team to test ideas, validate mental models, and iterate continuously rather than in isolation.

What we learned

1. Customers think in roles, not features

Enterprise users conceptualized IAM through distinct administrative roles (organization owner, user admin, service admin). Designs that didn't respect these mental models created confusion and errors.

*IAM workflows needed to align with how customers reasoned about roles and responsibilities.*

2. Flexibility matters more than efficiency

Users wanted multiple ways to complete the same task, depending on organizational context. Rigid, linear flows felt brittle and unrealistic for enterprise environments.

3. Participation builds ownership

Customers who helped shape the experience felt invested in the outcome and more confident in the final design—reducing resistance to change and increasing trust.

What changed

IAM workflows were redesigned to align with real-world admin roles
Information architecture was adjusted to support multiple task paths
Product teams shifted from product-led to experience-led decision-making

The participatory model itself became a template for future initiatives.

Impact

Accelerated design iteration through shorter feedback loops
De-risked complex IAM decisions before launch
Increased customer confidence and sense of partnership
Scaled the "Design Team" participatory model across VMware, with new cohorts launching regularly
Shifted VMware culture from engineering focus to customer focus

How the research was conducted

Longitudinal participatory research with enterprise IAM customers over eight weeks
Weekly customer engagement to review concepts, validate mental models, and iterate designs
Ongoing synthesis with product and design to inform decisions in real time
Recruitment of a large, diverse customer cohort to ensure coverage across roles and use cases

Why this mattered

This work showed how longitudinal, participatory research can:

Improve decision quality in complex, high-risk enterprise systems
Build trust with highly technical users
Create scalable research practices beyond a single project