Hello my dear,

Our industry keeps us on an ever-changing journey. According to this NNG survey, continuous learning is something that attracts most UX designers to their jobs.

However, one thing doesn’t seem to change: integrating UX and usability work stronger in various organizational projects. This in-depth study on UX Professionals’ Work Practices, published in the Journal of User Experience Volume 15 (2020), captures some interesting findings.
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How do we grow our UX impact?

UX design, especially UX research, is important for productive business decisions. Yet most product decisions are still based on business goals and lack a clear customer-centric focus.

Here are some tactics you can use to improve your position and impact design decisions.

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Understand your organization’s UX maturity level

Take a look at NNG’s UX Maturity model. It describes 6 stages an organization can have based on UX-related strengths and weaknesses.

Become aware of where your organization currently sits. This will help you to define the best strategy of how to move your organization forward. You can use this self-assessment tool to define the maturity stage: NNG Maturity Quiz​

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Be proactive in your communication

You need to start raising awareness of the benefits and impacts UX research can have. Communicate upwards (executive management, leadership) and sidewards (project team members). Start lunch and learns and share success stories.

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Adjust your messages to your audience

All of your stakeholders (developers, customers, upper management) have their own goals and agendas. For each audience, share UX benefits that relate to their specific goal (i.e. for developers, how UX research can help developers avoid mistakes; for business executives, how UX research can help identify new customer markets).

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Use reputable sources to gain authority

You can increase the relevance of UX recommendations by including findings and inputs from larger, reputable UX resources.

Here are some of my favourites:

​NNG (UX articles and industry reports)

​User interviews (user research articles and industry surveys)

​Journal of User Experience (Ux studies)

​Baymard Institute (ecom focused UX studies and best practices)

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Additional Resources & Tools

• ​Creating long-term UX impact with stronger stakeholder relationships (article by User Interviews)
• ​Stakeholder Map (Miro template)
• ​Stakeholder Persona Canvas (Medium article)
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UX Events to grow your career

Never stop growing! Here are some upcoming UX events that might be interesting to you:

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​The UX Leader’s Secret Power Is UX Outcomes (by Jared Spool)

Mon, July 15 | free webinar

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​UXDX Community: Enhancing Product Teams with Ethical and Universal Design Principles (by UXDX)

Tue, July 16 | free webinar

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Thank you

I hope these insights are inspiring and are helping you grow your UX career.

Feel free to ask any questions or comments; I love hearing from you.