6-Step Framework for Effective UX Strategy

most product designers are obsessed with the needs of user the phrase I fight for the user is pretty common in the field let me blow your mind companies don't revolve around the user users needs are just one part of the equation the second part is business needs hi I'm Ilia the founder of Alan the product design Agency for SS today I'll show you how to create your ux strategy somewhere between the needs of your users and your business interests What is ux strategy ux strategy is the process that Bridges the gap between business strategy and

ux design it outlines the path way to create products or services that resonate with users while also achieving business goals overlooking the importance of ux strategy can lead to various negative consequences let me name a few poor user satisfaction without a ux strategy there is a high chance that the end product will not meet the needs and expectations of users it can lead to a low user satisfaction and ultimately impact the product success in the market in efficient design process ux strategy guides the design process outline clear OB objectives and actions without it the process

can become disorganized and inefficient leading to increased costs and a longer time to Market ineffective use of resources without a clear ux strategy teams might spend time and resources developing features that do not resonate with the users leading to wasted effort and resources now how to create a ux strategy at elen we don't have a strict framework but when providing our services we never jump straight into pushing pixels we invest time and figuring out what problem made the client come to us for a solution when building the strategy the designer needs to understand the main

idea of the product its goals and objectives the business model behind this project the core functionality of the product that's why during the early stage of cooperation we usually have lots of calls in some cases even meetings and workshops related to product discussions and iterations to clarify the future user experience strategy ux strategy process development may include different steps let me provide you with a basic algorithm step one evaluate the current state it's very useful if there is a business plan that you can rely on but even if there is none you will have to

fill the gaps of missing data through interviews with stakeholders what's important to pay attention to at this phase first Common task that business should solve for example test the effectiveness of the business model win over users loyalty retain customers in someone understanding such basic goals allows you to set the right Focus from the very beginning ux strategy cannot and should not be created without considering the needs of the business second problems that you already know about for example user turn increases and anual recurring revenue does not grow and finally it's important to figure out what

resources you have step two set goals ux vision and proof of concept once it becomes clear what is happening with the product and with the business right now it's time to think about how you'd like the product to be perceived in the future for example let's recall the vision of one of the alant clients tax magic tax magic is one of the leaders in SMS marketing however overall SMS usage is doomed to decline due to high perveance of messaging apps like WhatsApp and wiber seeking to avoid the products declining together with the SMS Market text

magic ask elant designers to add some live chat and email marketing features with the new capabilities text magic aim to become an 0 in-one marketing platform gain new audience and relaunch the product life cycle by the way the concept of the product life cycle can be beneficial when you formulate your business Vision I've got a video that explains how it works step three Define Focus areas and the strategy scope we adopt the strategy for a certain period of time it can be 6 months after which we hold a retrospective and discuss whether it needs to

be updated or it contain longer period but when you need to have intermediate control points when talking about Focus areas we usually highlight several points like buyer personas products and services or our competitiv let's take a look at buyer personas the goal of this Focus area is to discuss with a team for whom exactly they solve this or that issue or create a new feature usually businesses have more than one type of buyer personas and it's better to prioritize them in situations where you have to choose who needs to satisfy in the first place prioritization

will come in handy for example every day the support team receives request for feature a from some individual users at the same time your salesman says that one potential Enterprise is almost ready to buy your biggest subscription plan if only you add feature B to the product focusing on target audience in your ux product strategy helps you to decide what feature to start developing first yet creating effective wi personas can be challenging so don't forget to watch my dedicated video to nail it down correctly focus on different services and products is especially relevant for big

companies If the product performs only one function there will be no problems with the allocation of the resources but what if there is more than one feature and besides users at different interaction stages use different functions your team faces a problem of what to do first redesign on boarding work on increasing conversions to paid subscriptions or develop new features competitor research when you look at competitors questions arise how people use certain features of your rival's product and how important these features are for the use users this way conducting competitive research helps to understand what to

focus on in your own project that's it for Focus eras let's move further with step four creating guidelines one of the most important parts of the strategy is a set of specific rules adherence to which will allow you to achieve your goals guiding principles Define what approaches to take to solve the issue your business is facing this can include a particular sequence of activities like mobile first but these rules should not be too narrow for example should not be limited to visual design only creating guid helps everyone move towards the same objective step five develop

a plan everything we talked about before had a single purpose to understand what actions to take in order to reach your final goal for that reason we need a high level plan this plan is rather the list of activities you need to take to solve business problems and meet user needs for example a part of our plan may look like this conduct user research develop user personas or validate existing ones create a prototype start usability testing on prototypes develop a design system step six Define metrics to track an essential part of your strategy should be

defined metrics that will help you assess whether what you're doing is helping you achieve your goals it's better to immediately determine how often you will track changes and metrics it depends on the metrix but you can take checkpoints every 2 to 4 weeks at the base case I won't go into detail about metrics because I already have a video on nine key SAS metrics you should track to ensure your business is doing great ins short evaluate the current state set goals ux vision and prove of concept Define Focus areas and the strategy scope create guidelines

develop a plan and Define metrics to track and that's it for today thank you for watching if this video was useful please hit the like button and subscribe see you in the next video [Music]