I recently began a redesign project by conducting stakeholder interviews. One thing quickly became clear: different silos within the organization were competing for ownership of the "User Experience." To get to the heart of the issue, I asked the VPs a simple question: "What is User Experience?" Their answers were refreshingly honest, with some even admitting, "I don’t know... What is it?"
This moment captured a larger challenge many organizations face—understanding what User Experience (UX) really means and why it's critical to their success.
Well, to begin with - User Experience is the keystone to viable innovation and realistic success.
The Challenge: Lack of Understanding and Alignment with UX Methods
Everyone has walked up to a door and pushed when you should have pulled – Despite the fact, it was clearly labeled “Pull”. Why? The design of the door elicited a “push response”. The person who designed the door understood how people respond to the elements of the door and how to design a door that will successfully work with user behavior. The person who ordered the door did not understand the usability of the design options – He/she didn’t understand the infrastructure – The door frame that will support the door to be ordered only supports opening out. When the person who hung the door expressed concern about the conflict between the two, a “Pull” label was added with the thought that people will read the instructions and learn – But you haven’t, have you?
What about navigating a large medical center that has added on to its building several times? Is that an efficient experience? Obviously, you eventually made it out but how stressful was that??
This is the essence of User Experience: when design, usability, and strategy are misaligned, it leads to confusion and frustration. Great UX prevents these issues, creating intuitive and seamless experiences.
The User Experience - Its emotional, its cognitive, and it should be successful. Its balancing quality and getting it done in a manner that business objectives are met and your customers/users are satisfied with the end result and feel good about your company and product/service. They want and pursue engaging with you again.
The term "User Experience" comes from Don Norman. Don realized that Human-Centered Design - coming out of ergonomics with a focus on Effectiveness (accuracy and completion) and Efficiency (number of steps and time to complete), did not capture all the facets of digital experience usability. Don developed the methodology User-Centered Design (Expanding the "E's" to include Ease of Learning, Error Toleerance, and Ease of Use/Satisfaction. UCD focuses on understanding the variations of abilities and mental models of the users aka user groups, the tasks they are performing, and the context in which they are performing these tasks to ensure experiences are usable. The principles of UCD include heuristics from Cognitive Pscyology - The intake, processing, and output of information (in our brains). He brought "User Experience" to us referring to the holistic digital experience. You can learn more about Don's UCD foundation in his book User-Centered System Design. There are a number of academic papers that have expanded up on the 5E's and UCD, you can find these via Academic journals and services.
What's important to take from this is - User Experience disciplines rely on this methodology for the foundations of Usability and it is the driver for the definition of products and services to ensure that they are relevant - or Useful. And that's where my work has been highly successful in reducing the risk of failure and wasted investment while raising the confidence and understanding in its potential success.
I like to think about User Experience work falling to two categories - Strategic aka "Useful" and Design aka "Usable". Regardless of the UX discipline - these are our contributions.
The Solution: Building a Unified Understanding and Vision
A balanced user experience that meets business objectives requires more than just design or project management—it's about aligning all elements - and internal teams, to deliver a cohesive, satisfying interaction. Whether it's a product or a service, success hinges on understanding the full ecosystem and ensuring every component works together effectively.
Many times I find internal teams not only lack the unified understanding of a successful customer or user experience, they don't have an understanding of how they influence it. Many people have ideas about what it should be - but the inability to collaborate and focus beyond what "I think..." or - who "owns" the user experience becomes the focus and degrades the overall effort - costing more and producing a less effective feature or product. Then there is the battle for ownership which I have seen multiple times result in wasted time and money, and impacted morale. Collaboration is essential for teams to collaborate and come together in their understanding and building a solution.
The Value of a Strategic Vision
Let's think back to the door experience. The people involved with "designing" this solution lacked a vision of the experience. What if everyone had a unified understanding of how the door(s) would be used? What if there was clarity for the team who built the entry-way framework? What if the person ordering the doors had the same vision? We wouldn't need instructions to open the door. Then we would only need the "Open/Closed" sign.
Its the same thing with customer/user experiences. Teams need that unified, holistic understanding of the user experience. Its a distinct skillset(s) within the UX Disciplines - UX Strategy and the supporting Strategic Research. It validates the business and market analysis. It takes attitudinal research and dives deep into the behaviors behind the attitudes to determine how the behaviors and attitudes can be leveraged to meet business objectives. It lays out a vision how it needs to be used to meet those business objectives. And it sets realistic expectations of what success can be.
Sometimes its more efficient and effective to bring in a neutral party to lead this - A consultant to lead and collaborate with stakeholders across the organization - and levels. Overall, this ensures a cost-effective effort that not only solves the problem but breaks down silos and hierarchy to give employees a voice, input, as well as hope - rejuvenating their belief in your company, the mission, their role, and product/service. The UX Strategy (and strategic UX research) is also a distinct discipline and skillset. Those who work in Design - or the Usable facet, usually don't have the strategic research and strategy skills - and skills to engage multi-disciplines at multiple levels across the organization to collaborate - to foster a sense of ownership and buy-in while harnessing multi-discipline thinking for a productive tension and result.
To be clear - This is not "Sprint 0". This is part of the foundation that informs a product roadmap and informs Sprint 0. It is lead by UX Strategist or UX Researcher/Strategists (That's me). And it follows a research strategy/roadmap and the initial research to distill findings into a UX Strategy - A unified vision of what needs to be built, how it needs to be used, and what the technology needs to support in order for the product, brand, and company to succeed.
And this is not Waterfall - This is ensuring success before Agile (A UI Design methodology) (and before product roadmaps) to empower Product, UX Design, and UI Design to make cohesive decisions.
My approach
My approach to UX Strategy is twofold:
Strategic Vision (Useful): Understand the business processes and objectives, user behavior, company culture, and the infrastructure to align every aspect of the user experience with core objectives and team roles. Create a foundation that empowers everyone to work cohesively even when making decisions independently. It removes "I think" from the conversation and replaces it with "This user/persona needs..."
Design Vision (Usable): Ensures that design research and design execution is empowered with a vision to iterate upon to answer design questions and is aligned with the strategy, creating a seamless, intuitive product that works for both users and the business. Regardless of how many teams are working within the Sprints.
What sets my expertise apart
My work isn’t about debating roles or relying solely on user self-reports. It’s about leveraging cross-disciplinary skills across the organization while fostering an understanding of responsibility to the experience and fostering buy-in with a sense of ownership through collaboration. Its about reducing the risk of failure while ensuring a cost-effective effort - doing more with less, and increasing confidence and understanding of success. With that vision - the team's morale is also higher. I rely on credible methods emphasizing real user behaviors, mental models, and attitudes to drive meaningful, strategic (and realistic) outcomes.
Ready to Transform Your Experience?
If your company is facing challenges like rising costs, doing more with less, modernizing operations, and/or launching a new/refined product - I can help. My expertise in UX research and strategy has transformed businesses by refining user experiences, streamlining processes, and creating innovative, actionable solutions.
Let’s work together to elevate your company and team morale - and turn your challenges into opportunities for growth. Contact me at Tracy@UsefulThingsLab.com.