4 reasons your ux investment isn't paying off

7/31/2019 4 Reasons Your UX Investment Isn't Paying Off

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H I L A R Y L I T T L Ewww.hilarylittle.com

4 Reasons Your UX Investment

Isnt Paying Off

EVERY DOLLAR SPENT ON UX BRINGS IN BETWEEN $2AND $100 DOLLARS IN RETURN.

We all know the business case for doing user experience work: in-vesting upfront in making products easy to use really pays off. Itreduces project risk, cost and time while improving end user satis-faction, efficiency and effectiveness.

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(Dont know the business case? Read this, or this. Or this.)

But what happens if youre investing in UX work and notgetting results?

There could be many factors behind an under-performing user ex-perience effort. Anything from lack of tools to an impending zom-bie apocalypse could wreak havoc on your teams. Addressingthose are outside my area of expertise.

Heres where I know what Im talking about. First, rule out the ob-vious: your UX folks are jerks, they dont communicate well, they

dont understand business, they arent team players, they havesuch terrible body odor people stay 10 feet away

Next, look at your organization.

Ive based the following list on observations accumulated over myyears as a UX professional. These are some common organiza-tional behavior patterns that can make even the best UX effortsineffective.

1. You hired the wrong people.

User experience design is getting a lot of attention lately and UXis a buzzword many want to add to their resumes. But the fieldhas been around for many years now (although under differentnames) and is fairly mature. Until a person has done full-time UXwork not as an aspect of their job, but as the job) for at least 2-3

years, they are generally not yet at a professional level.

How to spot a UX pro:

He displays high empathy, excellent communication skills andlots of curiosity.

H I L A RY L I T T L E I D E AT I O N & DE S I G N 4 R EA S O N S Y O UR UX I N V E ST M E N T I S N T PAY I N G O F F

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http://www.userfocus.co.uk/articles/usabilitybenefits.htmlhttp://www.usabilitynet.org/management/c_business.htmhttp://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2009/09/ux-in-the-boardroom-a-solid-case-for-investing-in-ux.phphttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombie_(fictional)#Zombie_apocalypsehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombie_(fictional)#Zombie_apocalypsehttp://www.usabilitynet.org/management/c_business.htmhttp://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2009/09/ux-in-the-boardroom-a-solid-case-for-investing-in-ux.phphttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombie_(fictional)#Zombie_apocalypsehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombie_(fictional)#Zombie_apocalypsehttp://www.userfocus.co.uk/articles/usabilitybenefits.html


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She doesnt design based on personal preference or opinion,and will try to make sure you dont either. She bases her de-sign decisions on user research, heuristics, test data and UIdesign patterns.

He is not attached to his designs. In fact, he starts withsketches and wireframes and happily crumples up many iter-ations before progressing to a detailed level of design.

She starts with concept, structure and information design be-fore progressing to interaction and visual design. If the firstthing she shows you looks like it could be the final product,shes probably not a UX pro.

He is very interested in measurable success metrics and usesthem to drive design direction and test protocol. If he speaksof making something easy, but cant say how hell measure

how easy it is, hes not a UX pro.

2. Youre not letting the right people do their job.

Great! Youve got a solid UX pro or team and an exciting projectkicked off. I hate to say it, but sometimes the very organizationthat values UX and hires us to do UX work is also the biggest im-

pediment to their UX teams success. Here are some rules of en-gagement that will enable them to do their best work.

They really do need to talk with and observe end users beforethe design gets done. This is the underpinning of what UXdoes. Give them reasonable and timely access to end users.

Dont provide subject-matter experts in place of users. Yourteam will tell you theyre not appropriate substitutes, andtheyre right.

Give designers authority (within technical constraints) on de-sign decisions, and researchers authority on test protocoland data interpretation.

Never do design by committee. Its a quick way to degrade adesign.

Youve hired your team to make your product successful. Beready to make design changes sometimes big ones fol-


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lowing user research and usability testing. The more usabili-ty recommendations are declined, the poorer quality theproducts user experience will be.

Dont nibble the design to death. Making a series of minor

changes here and there, or picking and choosing which as-pects of a design to keep or omit almost always creates newusability issues.

Clearly define roles and responsibilities for all team membersat the beginning of project work.

3. UX work is done in a silo.

User experience work touches almost every aspect of an applica-tion or website project. Your UX resources will need regular check-ins with a multi-disciplinary team. At the very least, a develop-ment resource must be available to vet designs for technical fea-sibility, and a business resource needs to make sure yourealigned with their goals.

The risk of not having a technical resource aware of the design di-rection from the beginning is that time gets wasted working on adesign that the coders cant build. The risk of not having a busi-ness resource is that your design will not meet business needs,making it a waste of time and effort.

Although there is a UX team responsible for designing your prod-uct, many other groups contribute to the final user experi-ence. Establishing a shared vision across all the groups involvedin a project can go a long way towards effective teamwork a coor-

dinated effort, and a great design.

4. The UX team is brought in too late.

Ironically, many people view UX work as something that is doneafter coding to make it look good. They couldnt be more


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wrong. We not-so-secretly call doing this putting lipstick on apig.

The best time to bring in your UX team is at the initiation phase of

the project lifecycle. The role of UX at this stage is to help definerequirements and structural design based on user needs. This iswhere we have the biggest impact.

Because user experience pros follow a methodology called UserCentred Design, they need to stay consistently ahead of the de-velopment team. For product design to be user-centred, the de-sign should be iterated and validated before its coded.

Thanks for reading this post. Have you observed other reasons UXteams might fall short? Please share your own experiences andthoughts by commenting.

More information:

Youre not a user experience designer if Breaking down silos What makes a good UX designer? Three keys to aligning UX with business strategy Starting a user experience team The user experience team kit (PDF) Usability & user experience

What is user-centred design?


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4 reasons your ux investment isn't paying off

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