In an increasingly competitive market, it is essential to develop a strategy that takes into consideration both the needs of the users and the goals of the business. And UX Strategy does just that.
So how about understanding better its concept and how it can be applied?
What is UX Strategy?
UX Strategy is a plan that aims to align user experience with the company’s growth, revenue, and positioning objectives. It is the connection of these very important perspectives to develop a product or service that will please users and achieve the intended results.
Every UX Design process is thought with focus on the users, to solve their problems and provide an amazing experience. UX Strategy works more expertly within this framework: it finds a way to ensure that user expectations are met, but without neglecting the company’s goals.
What is UX Strategy?
UX Strategy is a plan that aims to align user experience with the company’s growth, revenue, and positioning objectives. It is the connection of these very important perspectives to develop a product or service that will please users and achieve the intended results.
Every UX Design process is thought for the users, to solve their problems and provide an amazing experience. UX Strategy works more expertly within this framework: it finds a way to ensure that user expectations are met, but without neglecting the company’s goals.
How to create a UX Strategy?
To put together a UX strategy, there are, according to Nielsen Norm Grpoup, three components that need to be taken into consideration: vision, goals, and plan.
Vision
The first step in designing a strategy is to understand where you want to go and why. You need to find out how you view the product or service, what it stands for, and what its values are. It is important to:
1. Identify the company’s current situation and objectives
By evaluating the mission, the values, the current situation, and especially the goals, it becomes easier to outline a strategy that achieves results – after all, this is the purpose of the UX strategy.
Interview stakeholders to understand more details about the company: talk about what actually, from the business perspective, is part of the goals. Try to analyze and discover every piece of data that might interfere with the definition of the vision.
2. Identify the value of the product or service
Why does this product or service exist? What problems is it trying to solve? Which user does it want to reach? What innovation can it bring?
These are all valid questions for creating an ideal vision. Doing research with competing brands can also help you answer these questions.
2. Identify user needs and objectives
You can’t talk about UX without putting the user at the center. Knowing the type of user you are dealing with and what their needs are is crucial.
Listen to what users have to say. Research, interview, receive feedback, and use all means and channels to find out more about their desires and intentions with the product.
Goals
Now that you have established a vision, know how the company operates, and what its priorities are, it is time to determine specific goals related to users and the business. You must define measures and key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure progress.
For example, if a market offers discounts (objective related to the user) and, to do so, it asks the client to register and indicate the products bought, it will be possible to better understand the user’s profile and to know which products are the most popular(objective related to the business). The results could be exemplified as increased satisfaction, retention, and profit: 60% customer retention and 65% increase in sales.
Basically, you have to always ask yourself how the user can benefit and also how the business can benefit, and then check what is the best way to project and quantify the results so that the goals are feasible.
Plan
After so much has been outlined, we have to put it into action. The goals are divided into objectives that determine the steps needed to achieve results, and the plan will give you an idea of how this will all happen: which activities can be prioritized, what the focus is on each step, what the estimated time is, what the possible prerequisites and pending issues are, etc.
It is worth noting that the plan is more wide – it serves as a broad overview of what is to be done, it doesn’t need to be detailed. More specific tasks will be defined by the UX team as the strategy is executed.
It doesn’t have to be rigid either. Flexibility is a very important thing: it is nice to review it from time to time. You can stipulate cycles to evaluate progress, adapting and adjusting as necessary.
Jaime Levy, author of the book UX Strategy, came up with a formula to guide UX professionals with four main points: business strategy, value innovation, validated user research, and impeccable user experience. The topics cover what we have already briefly listed here. Worth a read if you want to dlve deeper into the theme!
