UX Strategy: Giving your product an edge
If your product was to be launched today, it will probably be one out of the 3,739 others to be launched before midnight. Products, features, ideas are shipped at a blazing speed every day. How do you make your product stand out? What can you do to increase your chances? There’s a concept I learned that has helped me build successful products for brands and businesses and I’d love to share it with you.
UX strategy
Simply put, user experience strategy aligns user experience design with the business goals and strategy of your company. A person who holds the unique position of a UX strategist in any organization is in charge of:
- Forming a bridge between the UX designer and Product/Offering Manager to ensure that both the business goals and the user needs are continuously aligned. This means fewer misunderstandings, and less rework and resource wastage during the design process.
- Keeping up with behavioral patterns. As technology transforms and improves ever more rapidly, so does user behavior and the adoption of new tools and features. Companies need to continue to predict user expectations and deliver digital products that delight users.
- Ensuring that the product has a plan to measure both successes and of course, your failures.
While you may have UX Designers in your team, usually their sole responsibility is focused on providing a human-centered approach to the design and development process of the product while also meeting the business needs. But they are not usually involved in crafting out the business strategy as much as a UX strategist will be.
To know if you have a good UX strategy in place, here are two important questions that a well-formulated UX strategy must address:
- How do we design the best user experience for a specific product?
- What is the best way to create and manage UX at a company?
Factors affecting UX strategy
Some factors that might affect UX strategy are the Type and Size of the organization. For start-ups and smaller companies, their focus might be on the quick rollout of a specific feature on one product. However, in larger, more established organizations there could be a variety of teams working on several products, who have adopted their own strategies.
Different UX strategies might need to be implemented depending on the situation because a strategy might be suitable for one product or project but not for another.
Creating a UX Strategy that works
The goal of a strategy is not to prescribe what to do. It’s a document that drives decisions. It’s to outline the project objectives not describe specific features. It focuses on:
- Goals over action
- Ideas over a to-do list
A good UX strategy should be able to be discussed in a 15 mins meeting. Hoekman suggests that when written it should be simple, clear, and concise and should fit in two sides of a piece of paper when printed as long-form text. Here is an example of what a UX strategy should look like:
Another amazing framework that is used at Google to create a UX strategy that works is Google’s HEART framework. An outstanding tool for measuring and improving the UX of any product. The acronym stands for Happiness, Engagement, Adoption, Retention, and Task Success and it allows UX designers to measure the success of the strategy against key metrics. Google uses it to make sure that every move they make agrees with their goals and adds to the bigger-picture strategy.
The framework of UX strategy
Here is the formula. It is the foundation for a solid UX strategy.
UX Strategy = Business Strategy + Value Innovation + Validated User Research + Killer UX Design
Business Strategy
This is how a company is perceived in the marketplace, how they plan to scale, and their model for generating revenue. Understanding business strategy will help design teams figure out steps to take to create satisfying products leveraging existing mental models of users. Business strategy is about identifying opportunities and this is achieved through experiments, learning, and reiteration until the desired outcome is identified
Value Innovation
Well, value innovation is achieved through constant and continuous research and redesign. This is very important because, as I mentioned earlier, the market is moving at a blazing speed. To keep your product valuable, your research and delivery process should be continually iterative. This is one method a UX strategist use to help a brand stand out among the competitions.
The success of Tiktok is a perfect example of value innovation. They have designed a product that has disrupted the social space, especially among the Gen Z generation. The value they provide is so incredible because there is a vast market of people, both young and old, who are looking for micro-entertainment and distraction for a few minutes during the day. If a video is interesting or appealing, it is reshared quickly by the algorithm on the ‘For You’ page and gains millions of views. This is called value.
Validated User Research
The goal is to validate research and design decisions with actual data. It is encouraged that this is done regularly as it helps to save time, effort, money, and resources. If something doesn’t test well, companies have the insight to either persevere or completely pivot. One valuable way a UX strategist can achieve this is to bring the key stakeholders to user research and testing sessions. This way everyone involved can see for themselves how a product/feature performs in front of real users. This collaboration will help organically build agreement on the value innovation and any changes that follow.
Killer UX Design
This is accomplished when the product interface allows its user/customers to easily accomplish their goals with little resistance.
How can UX strategists and designers achieve this?
- Collaborating with teammates and stakeholders actively from the conception of the idea
- Identifying the key features that are core to the product
- Study the market space and Identify opportunities to explore
- Converse with the targeted audience for discovery and validation
“Killer UX equals better conversation” — Jamie Levy
Conclusion
UX strategy is a method that validates if a solution is actually going to solve a real customer's problem in the marketplace. It also ensures product and market fit.
“Product/market fit means being in a good market with a product that can satisfy that market.” — Marc Andreessen
It helps the entire team and the stakeholders reach a shared vision for efficiency. When aligned with the right business model it can define a disruptive or sustaining product, as seen with Tiktok.
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Hi, I’m Raymond Akalonu. I help startups, businesses, and companies create quality, realistic, engaging and profitable experiences for their customers. My latest work is focused on taking businesses to the next level using the power of GOOD design. I know firsthand that it can be done and I want businesses to profit from what I’ve learned so far. Check out some of my work here. I am available for consultancy or working with your team to visualize that amazing idea. You can drop me a note here or reach me on Twitter or Linkedin.
