糖心vlog官网观看

What Is UX Strategy? Mapping the Path to Success

Written by 糖心vlog官网观看 Staff 鈥 Updated on

Discover what is UX strategy, its importance in aligning the brand with user experience, and how to develop a successful UX strategy for your product.

[Featured Image]: Three people look at a laptop while one of them explains what is UX strategty for an upcoming project.

User experience (UX) design involves creating digital products, while UX strategy provides the blueprint. A UX strategy is a detailed plan that aligns a company鈥檚 brand identity with the desired user experience at every customer touchpoint. For maximum effectiveness, this plan should be established before the design process begins.

Take a closer look at what defines UX strategy, why it鈥檚 an important skill to have as a UX designer, and how to develop a successful UX strategy for whatever product or service you鈥檙e designing.

Four tenets of UX strategy

In her 2015 book 鈥淯X Strategy: How to Devise Innovative Digital Products That People Want,鈥 Jaime Levy defines four tenets of UX strategy鈥攌ey elements that work in harmony to make a strategy effective.

1. Business strategy: These are the company鈥檚 guiding principles, as well as competitive advantage, revenue streams, and high-level business objectives.聽

2. Value innovation: Companies achieve value innovation by pursuing value for customers (differentiation) and lowering costs for the company simultaneously.

3. Validated user research: Instead of assuming what is valuable to a customer, get direct input from your target users before starting a design. This saves designers and companies from investing time, money, and effort into a product no one actually wants.

4. Exceptional user experience design: Once the other tenets are in place, it鈥檚 time to craft an exceptional user experience focused on the key features of the product. This experience should not only bring value to the customer, but do so seamlessly.

Thinking about starting a career in UX? Start building the job-ready skills you need from UX professionals at Google with the Google UX Design Professional Certificate. Complete three end-to-end projects for your portfolio and earn a credential for your resume in less than six months.

Why is UX strategy important?

Having a solid UX strategy in place helps ensure that a product team stays focused on solving the right problem for their target users. When you take the time to create a UX strategy, you may find it yields several other benefits as well.

  • It gets executives on board. A UX strategy ties the planned design directly to business objectives, helping leadership see the value in what you鈥檙e doing.聽

  • It aligns business goals, user needs, and technological capabilities. This can help prioritise time and resources throughout the design process.

  • It gives clear metrics of success. Knowing what success looks like from the onset鈥攁nd how you鈥檒l measure it鈥攎akes it that much easier to gauge the impact of design decisions to keep the product moving in the right direction.

  • It creates a user-first mentality. Validated user research helps UX team members better understand the user, including their pain points and goals.

  • It connects all touchpoints. UX strategy reminds you to step back and look at all the ways a user interacts with your product or brand.聽

How to create a UX strategy

Creating a UX strategy is a process that starts with defining goals and ends with experimenting with ideas until you find one that works. Whether you鈥檙e planning to start a career in UX or are already working as a UX designer, walk through these steps to build your UX strategy.聽

1. Define business strategy through stakeholder interviews.

Get the decision makers and company leaders involved early in your project. As a UX designer, you鈥檙e often focused squarely on the user, and rightfully so. This is the time to shift your attention to the business side.聽

How is the product you鈥檙e designing positioned in the marketplace? What are the company鈥檚 high-level goals and objectives? How are stakeholders measuring the success of the product?聽

Answering these questions early ensures that when you turn your attention toward the user, you鈥檙e doing so with the brand and business in mind.聽

2. Identify how to differentiate through competitive research and analysis.

Once you know how to align your design with the company brand and strategy, you can begin to assess where the product lies in the competitive landscape. You鈥檒l have to offer value to get a user to start using your product. Where will that value come from? What鈥檚 your competitive advantage?聽

Research what鈥檚 already on the market to solve this user need, and think about the key features that will set your design apart from other options.聽

3. Stay user-centred with validated user research.

Make sure you鈥檙e designing a product that people actually want to use. Do this by getting feedback from your target users early. There are several ways you can go about this: surveys and questionnaires, focus groups, A/B testing, card sorting, interviews, or field studies.聽

Take that value you think your product will offer and validate it with real users. If the data doesn鈥檛 back up that assumed value, take a step back and rethink your product.聽

4. Set specific design goals to get where you want to be.

Knowing where you want to go is just as important as knowing where you are now. Using the data you鈥檝e gathered from both users and stakeholders, define some metrics by which to gauge the success of your design. Be specific about what you want to achieve, how you plan to achieve it, and how you鈥檒l know if and when you have.

5. Run structured experiments and iterate on the results.

Designing that dream product that users love often involves a willingness to experiment and fail. As you work through your design, let your UX strategy guide your efforts. Continue to validate both the strategy and your design as you work. Create a minimum viable product (MVP), test it with real users, and improve upon it based on that feedback.聽

How do I become a UX strategist?

As more and more companies begin to recognise the value of thoughtful UX design, the roles involved in UX are becoming more differentiated. One of those specialised roles is that of UX strategist. As a UX strategist, you serve as a liaison between the business and the user by helping the design team create user-focused products that fit the company strategy and brand identity.

Since user research is such a critical part of developing a UX strategy, becoming a UX researcher may be a good first step toward a career as a UX strategist.聽If you鈥檙e interested in moving into the strategy part of UX, you may choose to develop these skills:

  • UX research: Having a good grasp of qualitative and quantitative research methods ensures you鈥檙e able to validate your strategy.

  • Negotiation: Your job will involve balancing the needs of the user with business interests.

  • Design thinking: Having a strong foundation in UX design best practices can help approach design problems more creatively and effectively.

  • Communication: A big part of developing a UX strategy is learning more about business stakeholders and target users.

  • Leadership: As a UX strategist, you鈥檒l often play a leadership role within the design team.

  • Business acumen: Understanding business strategy empowers you to bridge the gap between the user and the company.

Start your career in UX.

If you鈥檙e interested in launching a career in UX, start building the job-ready skills you鈥檒l need with the Google UX Design Professional Certificate. Learn from top UX professionals at Google, complete three end-to-end projects for your portfolio, and earn a credential for your resume in less than six months.

Keep learning about UX strategy with 糖心vlog官网观看

UX strategy is a blueprint for creating user-centred products. It considers business goals, user needs, and technical feasibility to ensure a product's success. A UX designer can build a UX strategy by defining goals, conducting user research, and setting measurable objectives.

You can gain UX job-ready skills with an industry leader by earning a Google UX Design Professional Certificate on 糖心vlog官网观看. You'll learn to empathise with users, ideate solutions, plan research studies, and synthesise your research results throughout the entire UX design process.

Keep reading

Updated on
Written by:

Editorial Team

糖心vlog官网观看鈥檚 editorial team is comprised of highly experienced professional editors, writers, and fact...

This content has been made available for informational purposes only. Learners are advised to conduct additional research to ensure that courses and other credentials pursued meet their personal, professional, and financial goals.