UX Strategy
Where you want to go, how you’ll know it’s working, and what comes first.
Almost every organisation wants to become more user-centred. Ask what that should actually mean two years from now, though, and in my experience the room goes very quiet. The website should get better, the portal accessible, the team somehow more UX-mature. But how do you measure ‘better’? And what comes first when budget and people are limited (so, always)?
UX strategy at Truly XD is a Maturity-Minded strategy framework for organisations with some UX experience under their belt. Based on your UX maturity, we define a user-centred UX vision with a long-term view, UX goals you can genuinely measure with the resources you have, and a prioritised UX roadmap. That makes UX strategy the foundation for Maturity-Minded Experience Design that succeeds in the long run.
What is a Maturity-Minded UX strategy?
In a nutshell: UX strategy is the plan that takes an organisation from where its user experience stands today to somewhere better. It traditionally has three building blocks: a vision, goals with measures, and a plan for who tackles what, and when. I stick to that. What I leave out is the ambition to do everything at once.
A textbook UX strategy looks great on slides. One that starts from your team’s actual UX maturity gets implemented – and can make a difference. That’s why a good starting point is the results of your UX Maturity Snapshot or another UX maturity assessment. ‘Strategy’ and ‘outcomes’ aren’t just the core of any UX strategy; they’re also two of the four dimensions in the Truly XD UX Maturity Model. So you already know where you stand before we decide where you want to go and how you’ll know you’ve arrived.
So Maturity-Minded means: I only suggest what your team can carry. That goes for the roadmap as much as for measurement. A measurement plan your team doesn’t have the people or the tech for isn’t a strategy. It’s a guilt-trip.
The goal
A shared picture of where your digital work should be heading over the next two to three years, and how you’ll know you’ve got there. Backed by leadership and the team, not just by the one person who ‘looks after the digital stuff’.
The result
A compact strategy with a vision, UX goals, metrics and a roadmap. It helps you make the case internally, justify budgets and funding applications, and move straight into experience design. Principles before Pixels, just one level up.
Who is it for?
This isn’t the right offer if you and your team are only just starting out with user-centred design. In that case, the Product Strategy Workshop is the better first step. And if you’re looking for consultancy on business models, markets or organisational development: that’s not me. But I know people who are very good at it.
You’re in the right place if …
- you and your team want to make the impact of user-centred thinking and design visible in numbers
- you want to get clear on a medium- to long-term vision and strategy for your digital services
- you receive private or public funding and need to show funders what your digital services achieve
- you’re in a leadership or digital role and have to justify where the budget goes, and why
From impact goals to UX metrics
Many organisations need to show funders what their work achieves, often along an impact logic such as an impact ladder (theory of change). UX goals can tie into some of those impact goals: Are you reaching the right people? Are they using what you offer? Does it change what they know or do? All of that can be measured – with methods your team can actually sustain. Sometimes a regular test with five people is enough, or even a simple tally sheet.
Services and Costs
The ideal starting point is a UX Maturity Snapshot or a comparable UX maturity assessment you’ve already done. That way, we start with data rather than gut feeling. Which methods get added, such as workshops or stakeholder interviews, depends on your project.
Because scope and pace also depend on your team’s UX maturity, there’s no flat fee here. After we’ve got to know each other, you’ll receive a no-obligation proposal for the next steps that fits your team and your budget. Non-profit and social impact organisations and educational institutions receive a social impact or education discount.
UX vision with a long-term view
Discovery & storytelling
In facilitated exploratory and strategy workshops, we work out with leadership and the team where your digital services should be in two to three years’ time, who they’re for and how it should feel when they work well. Outcomes might include design principles, a vision or a storyline that the whole team can get behind.
UX goals & realistic metrics
Definition & measurement
Together, we translate the vision into UX goals linked to your mission and impact goals, align them with your organisation’s goals and define meaningful metrics that make those goals measurable. The result: your metrics and a measurement plan you can actually keep up in everyday work.
UX roadmap & prioritisation
Roadmap & outlook
A prioritised roadmap for the next 6 to 12 months, with quick wins, a sensible order and the courage to say ‘we’ll do that later’. Tailored to what your team can carry today. If needed, with regular check-ins so the roadmap can grow with you.
UX strategy lays the foundation for design. That’s why Design That STICKs already plays a central role here: what the design will later need to deliver, such as accessibility or credibility, is part of our thinking from the start. And because UX strategy can grow into a very big field – covering third-party tracking solutions, organisational development or larger research studies, for example – I bring in specialists from my network when needed.
What comes before? And after?
The UX Maturity Snapshot shows where you stand. It provides the data your UX strategy builds on. More about the UX Maturity Snapshot
With a good strategy in place, you’re ready for Maturity-Minded Experience Design: research, co-design and inclusive design, at your team’s pace. More about Maturity-Minded Experience Design
To help what you’ve learnt take root in your team and turn UX strategies into reality, I’m happy to support you and your team with a Strategy & Design Retainer. More about the Strategy & Design Retainer (coming soon)
Why UX strategy with Truly XD?
Truly XD is a Maturity-Minded Experience Design studio for values-driven organisations. Strategy without design stays on the slide; design without strategy stays a gut feeling. I do both, in that order. I bring more than 20 years’ experience of user-centred projects, including for taz, die tageszeitung, and Mozilla (with my former studio BIRD UX), as well as numerous universities and institutions. And where a project needs more than one person can sensibly deliver, I work with specialists from my network.
No experience with user-centred design yet? Then take a look at Truly XD’s UX Capability Builders series. Every offer in this series introduces user-centred design processes to teams and embeds them for the long term, often for the first time. They’re deliberately compact, easy to access and designed to build on one another. To the UX Capability Builders series
Let’s talk about your strategy.
Tell me about your plans, your project and your team. The easiest way is a free, no-obligations 30-minute video call to get to know each other. Prefer writing? Email me or get in touch on LinkedIn.