Hello UX enthusiasts!

When I started in UX Design, I was driven by the passion for creating simple solutions for the user. I thought everything should be truly "user-focused."

And I am still driven by the goal of simplifying solutions. But something has changed.

If we only focus on one specific area, we become experts. My clients turn to me for a quick "expert opinion" and "best practices".

But:

The truth is, UX design is way more complex than knowing some rules and guidelines. It is even more complex than aiming to understand users.

A good user experience is the result of many aspects coming together: the product, the messaging, the brand, and the service.

As UX Designers we are the glue that brings all these aspects together.

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If you want to grow in your career, you need to take a more strategic approach to UX design.

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UX Strategy: How to add more value

While we should focus on the users, there is more we need to consider in UX Design. Jack O’Donoghue put it this way:

How do we merge business needs with user needs? Here are 4 steps you can start to include in your process.

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1 Understand the business vision

Before you start your next project, take some time to understand the business objectives. Start by asking questions (in your kick-off meeting or through stakeholder interviews):

• What is the target market?
• Who are the biggest competitors?
• What is our USP (unique selling point) or differentiator?
• What is the company’s vision? Where do we want to be in 1, 5 and 10 years?
• How do we measure success?

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2 Understand your users

We know that understanding the user is critical. It's not only relevant for your design decisions but also for strategic business decisions.

If user research is already part of your design process: congratulations, keep on rocking.

If, on the other hand, you struggle to get buy-in and enough time or budget, you need to make this missing puzzle piece more obvious to your managers and decision-makers.

Start by asking questions to identify knowledge gaps.

• Do we know what our customers are doing today?
  • What steps do they take to achieve a specific outcome?
• Do we know what they struggle with?
  • What are their biggest barriers?
  • How do we help them overcome these barriers?
• Do we know what our customers’ motivations are?
  • What do they want to achieve?
  • What would bring them to our service/ products?
  • What are their expectations?

If you don't have the budget (yet) for proper user research, start by collecting input to these questions in an assumption map. Try to do this exercise together with your stakeholders. It will help to get buy-in for more research.

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3 Map user goals to business objectives

As a next step you want to map user needs to the business goals. A helpful tool is a customer journey map to connect user needs and task to business opportunities and outcomes.

Another great opportunity to include your stakeholders in the process: they will understand how user needs tie directly into business decisions.

Alternatively (or as a summary of the customer journey map workshop), you can use a Business vs UX matrix. List inputs for:

• Business goals
• Issues/ business challenges
• Business objectives (mission, bigger picture)
• UX goals
• Success metrics

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4 Communicate the value of UX

Steps 1-3 will help you to show the value of UX. But to increase your buy-in, you want to widen the circle and share your knowledge with upper management.

Use Lunch & Learn or internal meetings to share data and case studies to show how improvements in UX lead to improved business outcomes (customer satisfaction, increased sales, reduced costs).

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Additional Resources

Want to dive deeper? Here are some additional resources:

• ​RAID Log Template to assess risks & assumptions in a kick-off (in Miro)
• Introduction to Customer Journey Map
• ​Aligning UX Strategy with Business Goals (UXPA Magazine)
• Book: UX Strategy​

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Questions or thoughts?

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.

Have a fantastic week,

Frauke

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