Business: UX Maturity

In a perfect world, companies would take a systematic approach to product design from their very first days. But, in reality, early product design efforts can be sporadic for various reasons—for instance, because a product must launch as soon as possible, there’s not enough money at the start, the user base must grow at the fastest rate possible, or the product idea changes constantly in trying to discover an effective business model. Why is this?

Product-growth and market-penetration rates are critical in a company’s early days. In fact, they’re more important than perfect technical solutions or high-quality designs. This is true especially for lean startups that employ the minimum viable product (MVP) concept. A team first needs to validate that they're solving the right problem for the right audience, in the right market. Only after that should they polish their product. At that point, a company understands that good design is important to the product’s success. Read More

An increasing number of organizations and individuals who develop software products, Web applications, Web sites, or other digital products are gaining a better understanding and appreciation for user experience and UX design and research. Subsequent to the introduction of some magnificent products and services that many executives now own or use—such as smartphones, tablets, Web applications, social media, and video games—they have gained a better understanding of what UX design and research can do to boost the success of a business offering.

That said, it still seems that the majority of product development organizations and the individuals who work for them have not yet fully bought into the benefits of UX design and even less so of UX research. When you encounter these sorts of organizations or individuals, you have a decision to make: fight or flee. To make a good decision, you should start by identifying the maturity of the organization in which you work. It might be helpful to do this by considering the UX research maturity model I’ll describe in this article. Read More

This is Part 1 in a series of four parts about the fictitious organization Delta Market and its journey from the lowest to the highest level of UX maturity. Part 1 of this series provides an overview of the series, presents some personas representing people who work for Delta Market, and outlines the UX maturity model that forms the basis for this series.

In subsequent parts of this series, I’ll describe some scenarios in lieu of actual case studies because case studies are hard to find. Often, organizations are unwilling to share such information because a good user experience is a competitive business advantage. Scenarios are particularly helpful because they have their basis in storytelling and are condensed and easy to grasp. My hope for this series is to encourage discussion and help organizations define their vision and set goals for their UX development. Read More