Master the Strategic Design Framework for Guaranteed Success

Master the Strategic Design Framework for Guaranteed Success

by | Oct 4, 2024 | Blog, Product Design

The way something looks isn’t the only thing that design is about. It’s also about making experiences count. Designing is more than just making ideas happen. It also involves aligning our efforts with the company’s goals. This is where being smart is important. If designers are adept at designing strategies, they can create products that significantly influence both users and stakeholders.

What is Strategic Thinking?

Strategic thinking means being able to look at complicated situations, guess what problems might come up, and come up with effective plans to reach long-term goals. It means thinking beyond your current tasks. In other words, creators need to know about the business goals, the market, and what users want.

Artists, not just business leaders, need to be able to think strategically. Thinking carefully helps designers make decisions that benefit the business and users. This method encourages new ideas by allowing creators to try out unusual solutions while remaining true to what works in the real world.

Strategic thinking also makes people more likely to work together. It brings together different points of view, which can help create a welcoming environment that results in more complete and well-rounded design plans.

What Is A UX Design Strategy?

In UX (User Experience), “create strategy” refers to the steps taken to plan and make decisions about how to create a product or service. It takes into account business goals, user wants, and technical feasibility when planning on providing people with a meaningful experience.

Design strategy fundamentally involves understanding the product’s intended use and the customer’s journey to it. It helps us figure out important things like, “What problems are we solving?” Who are our clients? What hurts them the most?

Having a clear design plan during product development ensures intentional decision-making and enhances the overall experience. It makes sure that everyone on the team is working toward the same goal and that they can talk to project partners about where the project is going in a clear way.

There should be room for change in a successful design plan. As new information emerges during the design process, the strategy can adapt to suit evolving user needs or market conditions. This ability to change is essential in today’s fast-paced design world, where technology and user tastes are always changing.

How Do You Create a Strategy Design?

To create a plan design, several steps must be taken, requiring both analytical and creative thinking skills. Here’s an organized way to come up with a successful design strategy:

Research and Understand The Context

Researching a lot is the basis of any design plan based on extensive research. First, find out about your target group, market trends, and your competitors. Use tools like interviews, polls, and analytics to learn about how people behave and what they like. This study is the foundation for every other step of the strategy.

Define Clear Objectives

Setting clear, measurable goals is crucial once you fully comprehend the situation. What do you want your product idea to do? Goals could include making users happier, getting more people to buy, or making things easier for everyone to access. These goals help you plan and evaluate results.

Identify Key Stakeholders

Get important people involved early on in the process. This includes team members, managers, and even those who might use the app. Their suggestions can provide useful information that changes the design strategy. Regular contact with stakeholders helps everyone work together and stay on the same page.

Develop User Personas

User profiles are made-up versions of the people you want to contact. They give data a face, making it easier to understand what users want and why they do what they do. Making detailed characters allows you to better adapt your design strategy to meet the needs of specific users. This will help you make sure that your product speaks to the right people.

Map The User Journey

To understand how people use your product, you must be able to picture the user journey. Create Makemytrip maps that illustrate the steps people take from the moment they discover something to the moment they use it. This planning process identifies issues and suggests improvements, subsequently incorporating them into the design strategy.

Brainstorm and Ideate Solutions

Once you have a decent idea of the user and the situation, you can start coming up with answers. At this point, encourage people to be creative and open-minded. To generate a multitude of ideas, consider participating in design thought workshops or sketching collaboratively with others.

Prioritize and Create a Roadmap

Prioritize your ideas by likelihood, benefit, and alignment with your goals. Make a plan that shows the order of the design tasks and important dates. There should be enough room in this plan for new ideas or problems to come up during the design process.

Prototype and Test

To test your design approach, you need to build prototypes. To try ideas and get feedback from users, make low-fidelity prototypes. This iterative process lets you improve your ideas based on how real people use them. This way, you can be sure that your design meets their needs.

Implement and iterate

After testing your design approach to make sure it works, it’s time to put it into action. Collaborate closely with the development teams to ensure the proper execution of the plan. Once the app is live, keep getting comments from users and tracking its performance. Use this information to continually improve the product.

Reflect and Learn

After the delivery phase, reflect on the successes and areas for improvement. Write down the things you learned and the new ideas you had during the process. This reflection is critical if you want to change how you plan for future projects.

Conclusion

As a designer, you must think strategically and use what you’ve learned in the real world to come up with a plan. If you understand how design strategy works in UX, you can create products that meet user needs while also helping your business reach its goals. Research, collaboration, and iteration are all parts of the strategy design process. All these steps aim to produce valuable user experiences.

Product design is a field that is always changing. A strong design strategy will help you deal with problems and take advantage of chances, leading to successful and meaningful design solutions. Learn the art and science of strategic thought, and your design business will grow.

Crafting Successful Products: A Designer’s Recipe for Innovation

Crafting Successful Products: A Designer’s Recipe for Innovation

by | Jun 20, 2021 | Blog, Product Design, UX

My recipe rant

Way back in the days that Google maps did not exist, (I am purposely discounting any other technology that ‘promises’ to help you get where you want to go) there was the TomTom. Maybe you heard of it, maybe you haven’t – in short, it was a device that you would stick to the front window of your car and it would guide you where you want to go.
Eventually the TomTom got pretty good at guiding you to your destination but in the beginning it suffered from bugs.

I remember one time when I was finding my way in Belgium and instead of telling me to turn right at the next exit, the device told me that I had missed the exit after I had passed it. That was unpleasant. I had to drive for aeons to get back on track. Another time in Spain the TomTom guided us through rice fields (I kid you not) only to find ourselves stuck in a dead-end web of sandy roads. That too was an unpleasant experience.

The same thing often occurs when I follow a cooking recipe which in my mind works like this:

I have been cooking every day for the last couple of months now and what I find with most recipes is that the amount of time that is needed to prepare the meal is mostly wrong (or at least not right for my kitchen appliances) or that the ingredients are only available in mainland China and that you should have ordered them far in advance. What I do in those cases is find an alternative recipe. Hands-down the most dreadful thing that i get when I follow a cookbook recipe for the first time is that sentence at the end of the recipe saying: “Now put in the fridge for 24 hours and cook the next day”. What?! I have guests tonight!

When I see a recipe I like, I begin making the meal in the order in which it is written down (doesn’t everybody?). So at the start of the recipe it would say first make this, then prepare that, put that to a boil until you place all the ingredients on a plate.

I still love his cooking, but are there no UX people around when he writes his books? people who can observe people while they cook and tell him all the different kinds of manners there are that people approach cooking a recipe for the first time

Key pillars of UX strategy: how to unlock success

Key pillars of UX strategy: how to unlock success

by | May 7, 2021 | Blog, Product Design, UX

In short:

  • A UX Strategy is a plan to achieve an end goal.
    It’s a multi-step step approach that answers to the following three questions:
    1. Where are we now?
    2. Where do we want to go?
    3. How are we going to get there?
  • Before you embark on this journey you need to understand what level of UX maturity your organisation is at. There are 4 levels of maturity. Only spend time on a UX Strategy if the company is at level 3, otherwise aim your efforts at increasing the UX maturity of the company.
  • Second, when you’re on level 3, get executive buy-in by showing them what the benefit of a UX Strategy is for the company. Do this by answering the following two questions:
    1. What is the benefit for the user?
    2. What is the benefit for for the business?
  • Once you have buy-in from the executives, work on your UX Strategy by applying UX-methods such as:
    UX Research,
    stakeholder & domain expert interviews &
    desk research.
  • Then, for more impact, boil your findings down to a one page plan (or a blueprint) like the examples on this page.

What is UX Strategy

UX Strategy is a plan towards achieving a goal. It consists of 4 to 5 steps that describe:

  • Where we are now,
  • Where we want to go,
  • How we’re going to get there, and
  • How much time we have to get it all done.

UX Strategy can be viewed on an organisational level (how do we make the entire organisation UX aware?) or at a project level (what will we do to achieve our goal?)

I looked at many UX professionals who discuss UX Strategy from their own perspective. I ended up with 6 of them that stood out. I took the similarities and the differences in their approach and combined that with my own experience. I share my findings with you in this post.

The 6 professionals are:
A. David Juhlin ⤵ – Five Levels of UX Strategy
B. Jared Spool ⤵ – UX Strategy Means Business
C. Jim Kalbach ⤵ – UX Strategy Blueprint
D. Jaime Levy ⤵ – UX Strategy
E. Robert Hoekman Jr. ⤵ – Guide Your Design With a 1-Page UX Strategy
F. Daniel Birch ⤵ – Five pillars of UX strategy

“Strategy is a story told to others about how challenges can be overcome. It is about persuasion: convincing others to work with you or explaining to adversaries the consequences if they do not.”
– Strategy: A History by Lawrence Freedman –

A. Five Levels of UX Strategy – David Juhlin

We will start with David Juhlin because of his focus on the Business strategy first and UX strategy second. He discusses 5 levels of UX strategy that range from UX strategy on product level to a UX strategy on a global level(image right). I will skip the industry and global levels. These are irrelevant for most companies.

An important point that Juhlin raises is to be aware of what the business strategy of the company is. Because ‘offering the best at user experience’ may not be what the company strives for.
“A company that bases its business strategy on superior technology” Juhlin says “may stop at delivering a good enough experience for its users.”

I bit off more than I could chew on several occasions where I tried to lift the level of UX maturity in a company only to be confronted with the fact that that is not what the company was looking for. Avoid that.

David Juhlin’s 5 levels of UX strategy

“A great UX strategy is the approach that best supports the company’s overarching business strategy.”

Via various examples he shows how a well implemented UX strategy boosts a company’s sales and how that is a good argument to level up your UX Strategy.

Most of corporate UX occurs on a project level (the smallest circle). This often means applying best practices . Few companies can lead in this field. Only those who have the means to invest time and resources to develop a ‘leader strategy’. When they do, it’s almost immediately copied by others.

He emphasises to benchmark progress as the organisation grows and scales its UX strategy. He offers various methods to do this such as Attrakdiff, Net promoter Score (NPS) and the System Usability Scale (SUS).

“The reason for the product, application or the site. Why we create it, who are we doing this for, why people are willing to use it, why they need it. The goal here is to define the user needs and business objectives“

“The reason for the product, application or the site. Why we create it, who are we doing this for, why people are willing to use it, why they need it. The goal here is to define the user needs and business objectives“

B. Jared Spool’s “UX Strategy Means Business”

UX powerhouse, Jared Spool also considers the business side of things before it comes to UX Strategy. His philosophy is that if you want to move the UX needle forward then the first thing you need to do is convince executives that your UX design ideas make the organisation stronger: The Need to Think and Talk like an Executive.

What Jared Spool teaches is how to get (the executives of) your organisation ready to embrace a custom UX strategy. You do that by showing what’s in it for them and answering the following 5 questions:

How might our UX design initiative:
1. Increase overall revenues? ⤵
2. Decrease operational costs? ⤵
3. Increase revenues from new business? ⤵
4. Increase revenues from existing business? ⤵
5. Increase shareholder value? ⤵

1. Does our UX design initiative increase overall revenues
A colleague told me once “Everything we do here is to help the salespeople sell”. This is true even for non-profit organisations. With that in mind look closely at your team’s UX design initiatives. Do they help salespeople sell? If the answer is ‘no’ then the initiative may not be in the company’s best interest.
Answer the following questions with a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ with every design initiative you take:

  • Does this initiative increase direct revenues?
  • Does this initiative increase indirect revenues?
  • Does the investment in our design return value to our organisation?

At least one of these questions should be answered with ‘yes because…’

2. Does our UX design initiative decrease operational costs
A poor user experience costs organisations money. When we find costs associated with poor UX, we can decrease operational costs such as:

  • Support costs
  • Efficiency costs or
  • Development costs

3. Does our UX design initiative increase revenues from new business
Sometimes products and services are too complicated for new users to understand. This keeps them from becoming new customers. If your designs can make it easier to onboard new users then that’s a good argument for how to increase revenue from new business

4. Does our UX design initiative increase revenues from existing business
Renewals, upgrades, and purchases of follow-on products and services can be the lifeblood of some organizations. “Poor design turns existing customers away, while enticing follow-on products or upgrades is a great way for design teams to add to the organization’s bottom line.”

5. Does our UX design initiative increase shareholder value
Shareholder investors are looking for a long-term return on their investment. You need to ask yourself if what we do today still holds true 10 or 15 years from now. Can what we do now help to build a better, more solid organisation in the future?

Armed with your answers to the questions above you can start the process of convincing executives to invest in a UX strategy plan. Items C to G teach you how to make a UX Strategy on project level.

“It’s important that we can answer at least one of the above questions about our UX design initiative. If we can’t, what value is the initiative bringing to the organisation?”

C. UX Strategy by Jaime Levy – How to devise innovative digital products that people want

Levy is a heavyweight in her own right. She’s been into UX before the field was established. She also has business strategy as her starting point.

The image to your right is from the book “UX Strategy” by Jaime Levy.

It shows four dinner plates that form her UX strategy. Levy calls this the discovery phase. Each plate (or tennet) represents a principle:

Levi’s 4 tenets of UX strategy

Tenet 01: Business strategy
Business strategy is the reason that the company exists. It makes sure that a business grows in its market and beats competition. It describes how a company plans to achieve its desired objectives for the next 3 to 5 years.

Traditionally companies do this by continually utilising a competitive advantage which is either cost leadership (e.g. supermarket price wars) or differentiation (e.g. Starbucks coffee).

Levi introduces a UX competitive advantage with differentiated user experiences.

Differentiated user experiences add value to a product because it makes it more appealing to more people. If more people use your product, and tell other people about your product, it leads to higher use and more success.

Tenet 02: Value innovation
Value innovation is developed by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne and is the cornerstone of market-creating strategy; the task of finding opportunities in a blue-ocean market. Its goal is to render your competition irrelevant by creating a new demand and changing the market. The opposite is called a ‘red ocean strategy’ which is fighting competitors in an existing market.

Tenet 03: Validated user research
Validated user research is making sure that the idea (MVP) you end up with is something that users like (and will pay for).

Tenet 04: Killer UX
Killer UX is exactly what it sounds like: an aesthetically pleasing product or design that provides value to the user.

“ The purpose of any strategy is to create a game plan that looks at your current position and then helps you get to where you actually want to be.”

C. Jim Kalbach – UX Strategy Blueprint

Author of the 2014 book Mapping Experiences: A Complete Guide to Creating Value through Journeys, Blueprints, and Diagrams

He is also the owner of the website Experiencing information on which he shares his UX Strategy blueprint like the one you see on the right (the information, not the design). The Blueprint can be found on his website.
His blueprint consists of six planes or steps that each have their method and function. They are:

How might our UX design initiative:
1. Challenges ⤵
2. Aspirations ⤵
3. Focus areas ⤵
4. Guiding principles ⤵
5. Activities ⤵
6. Measurements ⤵

Start with the ‘challenges’ and ‘aspirations’. Then fill in the other fields. When all fields are filled cross things off, move sticky notes around, rework ideas, crumple it up and start over again until you are satisfied

1. Challenges
Strategy implies the need for change, a desire to move from point A to point B. From where you are now to where you want to be. Identify what the challenges are that keep you from reaching that desired outcome?
Strategy is about problem-solving. What problems are you solving? Focus on these areas:
α. Individuals → Adoption, Engagement, Persuasion, Friction
β. Experience → Coherency, Modernisation, Innovation
γ. Process → Efficiency, Effectiveness, New methods, Political

2. Aspirations
What experience do you ultimately want to deliver? Strive for something aspirational like “We want to differentiate our service through a specific type of user experience, which would drive adoption”.

Consider how you will impact your customers’ work and daily lives. How does your solution transform what they capable of doing and who they ultimately are? Your aspirations should inspire your teammates.

3. Focus areas
Indicate your primary focus for these five topics in a straightforward, factual manner:
Users→ Who will use your solution? If you have personas, list the ones that are most relevant to the success of this strategy.
Regions→ What are the countries, languages, and cultures that are in play?
Services→ What products, services, platforms, and technologies are included in the strategy? Scope out the ones that aren’t.
Use cases → Indicate the key scenarios of use at a high level. For instance, in e-commerce settings will you focus on finding products, the purchase process, or both?
Areas of UX → What areas of UX will make the most difference? Highlight aspects such as information architecture, interaction design, visual design, content strategy or branding, as well as attributes of usability such as control, learnability, or discoverability, among others.

4. Guiding principles
In business strategy, the guiding principle indicates how you’ll win against competitors.
For UX strategy, the guiding principles are the approaches you’ll take to overcome the challenges and solve the problems you’re facing.

Strive to be specific:
What rules of thumb must be in place to reach your aspiration?
What mantras would you give design teams to consistently execute towards the same goal?

Strategy provides consistency in behaviour. How will you get everyone paddling in the same direction?

5. Activities
What types of UX activities are needed to implement the strategy and achieve your aspirations?

This includes such things as user research, concept development, sketching, screen design, prototyping, and testing, as well as creating patterns or guidelines.

Keep in mind you may need new capabilities to execute your strategy. Strategy isn’t a re-configuration of existing skills and resources, rather how you’ll maximise chances for success.

6. Measurements
How will you know your strategy is on track? How can you show progress and success? Often benchmarking and comparison is needed.

This means you’ll likely have to measure aspects of your user experience (e.g., satisfaction) before and after work begins. Ultimately, your measurements should support the business goals. Find metrics that show the positive impact UX has on business. Be specific with goals like “increase sales by 5% by streamlining checkout” or “reduce calls to the support center by 15% by providing better self-help online.”

You’ll probably find overlap with the information you provide for these six elements. That’s a Good Thing: strategy is an interlocking set of choices you make to overcome adversity and reach a desired position. The overall logic should make a coherent storyline.

“Strategy is about uncovering the key challenges in a situation and devising a way of coordinating effort to overcome them for a desired outcome”

E. UXPin’s 1-Page UX Strategy by Robert Hoekman Jr.

Hoekman’s approach to UX Strategy is akin to the UX Strategy Blueprint by Jim Kalbach . Just like Kalbach’s blueprint, Hoekman also divides his approach into six exercises that are each subdivided into smaller tasks.

Teams should start off by getting the message right. Align team members in a project kick-off to ensure that everyone is on the same page at the start of the project.

“What good UX strategy actually entails is researching and recognising the constraints and concerns from all sides and painting a big red target on the wall so that everyone involved can make decisions that serve researched, vetted, and defined objectives.”

UXpin’s ‘s UX strategy represented as the different approaches to get to the top of the mountain

F. Daniel Birch

According to Daniel Birch at Justinmind , UX Strategy boils down to why and how you’re going to implement user experience in your software.

He spreads his approach out over 5 pillars. Each pillar shows what steps to take to end up with a UX Strategy that works every time.

Daniel Birch’s 5 key pillars of a UX strategy

1. Understand who your users are:

2. Understand your Value:

3. Know how to solve the problem:

4. Have a clear vision:

5. Continuous feedback and iteration:

“The reason for the product, application or the site. Why we create it, who are we doing this for, why people are willing to use it, why they need it. The goal here is to define the user needs and business objectives“

G. UX Real

I believe that a UX Strategy lies somewhere between Lean UX and Agile UX. If Lean UX is about reducing waste within the design cycle itself, and Agile UX frames UX design inside the Agile development framework, then this UX Strategy plan caters for both. Here it goes:

1.

“In Corporate UX time = money2, so “

UX Planet’s 5 key pillars of a UX strategy