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

Dogmatic UX professionals would likely cringe at this: We must sometimes set aside our prized UX processes and deliverables to do what’s necessary for our companies to stay profitable during difficult times, which many of us are experiencing in 2024. Often, what’s necessary could be contributing to processes and deliverables that feel unrelated to our professions. However, many of these other activities can serve as perfect use cases for UX professionals’ skills because we are uniquely qualified and positioned to influence various business strategies. Moreover, this is not a zero-sum situation. As we mold our skills to fit other valuable areas of expertise, we can shoehorn in our valued UX best practices and methodologies. What are some other activities that could benefit from our UX skillsets? In this column, I’ll present and expand upon the following activities:

• leading Customer Advisory Board discussions
• volunteering to conduct market research and competitive analysis
• facilitating workshops focusing on features and requirements
• driving innovation activities
• supporting internal, product-telemetry strategy and analysis Read More

Many professionals who focus on User Experience (UX), Customer Experience (CX), and innovation describe the maturity of these practices within their organization as elusive muses that are perpetually out of reach. It’s challenging just to build awareness of these practices much less to bring them to maturity—that is, to get them to the point where they’re woven into the fabric of a company’s charter and business objectives.

At Rockwell Automation, we’re forging a path to UX, CX, and innovation maturity by using several tactics. One of the most impactful tactics has been cultivating communities of practice (CoP) throughout the organization. These communities of practice focus on design, innovation, and related best practices. Making our various communities of practice successful requires a concerted effort—a big part of which is establishing strong, dedicated leadership. Therefore, I’ve asked the following CoP leaders from Rockwell to join me in a Q&A-style discussion for this column:

• Krystal Thibault, Innovation Program Manager and Innovation CoP Leader
• Daniel Zinzow, Senior Lead UX Strategist and Design CoP Leader
• Magda Jagielska, Customer Experience (CX) System Manager and CX CoP Leader   Read More