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I’ve spoken to dozens of tech execs over the past two months as a part of a product design leadership job search, and have some observations about the state of UX that may be helpful to upcoming UX and product design leaders.
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After meetings with execs at tech companies of all sizes and stages, I've realized that many don't know what to expect from their product design teams or how to quantify UX impact.
Product design isn’t fully developed as a business function. Smart execs feel that design should have more impact on the business than it does today but don't have frameworks or mental models they trust for thinking about how.
Don't be fooled by the well-documented design maturity of high functioning design teams within big companies like Google, Stripe, and Shopify. These design teams are exceptional - not the norm just yet.
Here's the framework I use to define the potential impact of the design capability within a given company:
1. Organizations have different levels of design maturity:
1. Producers - focus on pixels
2. Facilitators - drive collaboration
3. Operators - broaden scope
4. Decision-makers - quantify impact
5. Strategic leaders - help chart the course
1. Producers - focus on pixels 2. Facilitators - drive collaboration 3. Operators - broaden scope 4. Decision-makers - quantify impact 5. Strategic leaders - help chart the course
Design teams have the most impact when their maturity level grows as fast as or faster than the company they sit within. Understand where your org sits within the design maturity model so you can optimize for achieving that next level.
2. To increase the design maturity of your company, you'll need to influence these 3 areas:
a) people
b) process
c) product
a) people
b) process
c) product
People (a1): Understand the Design team's strengths and growth opportunities, both at an individual level and as a team within the org. Prioritize helping other designers get better at one, high-impact thing every day.
People (a2): Technical skill development gives way to collaborative and analytical skill development as designers advance in their careers. Each team member should be able to see a career progression path that connects their growth with outcomes the company values.
Process (b1): Optimize each step of the design process so that it's customer-centric, business-minded, inclusive, transparent, and predictable. This will make your PM, and Eng teams all happy. The outcomes good process enables will make your users and exec team happy.
Process (b2): Optimize for the things that will have the highest impact on quality of life for designers and teams that collab with design. Don't try to fix everything at once - focus on improving little things consistently.
Product (c1): Understand the end-to-end customer journey in more detail than any other team within the company. Draw a connection from UXR and voice of the customer data (NPS, CS, sales feedback, reviews, community/social media, etc) through to business priorities.
Product (c2): Define a UX Vision for your company. Jared Spool has referred to this as a "flag to march towards". Your vision should be ambitious, believable, and compelling. You want others to be able to repeat your story as if it's their own.
Wrapping this up, it's an exciting time to work in UX and Product Design, particularly in the changing world we live in today.
If you're a senior designer "trying to get a seat at the table", focus on increasing design's impact in your company by defining your team's Design Maturity and then taking small steps across People, Process and Product to increase it.
Some of the resources that contributed to my thinking on this:
@InVisionApp’s Design Maturity Model https://www.invisionapp.com/design-better/design-maturity-model/
@mckinseydesign’s The business value of design https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/mckinsey-design/our-insights/the-business-value-of-design
@jmspool’s The Experience Vision https://articles.uie.com/the-experience-vision-a-self-fulfilling-ux-strategy/
@InVisionApp’s Design Maturity Model https://www.invisionapp.com/design-better/design-maturity-model/
@mckinseydesign’s The business value of design https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/mckinsey-design/our-insights/the-business-value-of-design
@jmspool’s The Experience Vision https://articles.uie.com/the-experience-vision-a-self-fulfilling-ux-strategy/
