Strategy: Design Strategy

This month in Ask UXmatters, our expert panel discusses how to prevent a project whose goal is defining UX strategy from devolving into a tactical exercise. First, our panelists considers how important it is that a project team have a shared understanding of what strategy is, but also acknowledge that, even among UX professionals, not everyone defines UX strategy in the same way. Our panelists define the terms strategy, tactics, business strategy, product strategy, UX strategy, and design strategy.

Our expert panel agrees, only once a business and a product team have aligned on their strategic goals can UX professionals understand how best to support all of those goals. Our panelists also recognize the importance of understanding where UX strategy work fits within a company’s projects and roles. Finally, the panel looks at how to create UX strategy artifacts that support business goals and propel their company toward achieving them. Read More

Strategy is your product’s path to success. As software continues to eat the world and artificial intelligence becomes pervasive and, eventually, even commoditized, your product strategy can build competitive advantage through your product’s user experience—how people feel, what they think, and how they connect with others when using your product.

So how can you differentiate your product’s user experience and, thus, leverage user experience to create competitive advantage? By integrating user experience into your product strategy. Read More

Design professionals often decry the lack of importance and investment their companies place on design. After all, most software projects revolve around a product’s engineering, to the ongoing detriment of its design—not to mention the chagrin of so many designers, who wriggle uncomfortably toward the bottom of the food chain. But there is a good reason for this: products can be very profitable without investing a single penny in interface design—at least, beyond the user interfaces the engineers build. Indeed, at least in the early stages of a market or company, resources dedicated to intentional interface design are often a bonus rather than being viewed as a necessity. Sound crazy? Consider the natural and normal evolution of a software product. Read More