Every business has goals, otherwise, they wouldn’t be able to generate revenue, profit, products, and services, and overall, keep customers happy and buying more. But how do companies make sure they are getting the most out of their products and services in terms of customer experience, customer purchasing habits, and overall customer spending? The answer has to do with a User Experience (UX) Strategy, a term developers, project managers, directors, managers, CTOs, and of course, UX designers, need to get familiar with it if they want to build and execute higher-performing products and services.

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Defining UX Strategy and Why it’s Important

According to Nielsen Norman Group, UX strategy is a plan of actions designed to reach an improved future state of the organization's user experience over an established period of time and comprises three primary components: 

• Vision or Statement(s) of Intent - A clear articulation of the desired future state of the user experience, outlining the aspirations and ideal outcomes for the product or service.
• Goals and Measures - Specific objectives accompanied by metrics to assess progress toward the envisioned user experience.
• Plan - A detailed roadmap outlining the actions and steps necessary to achieve the defined goals and realize the vision.

Think of UX strategy as a framework for the design and development of products and services. But UX strategy goes beyond design and development, it’s about making every user interaction meaningful. It’s about building an experience customers will love, an experience that will draw them back again and again and again. An experience that will motivate your customers or users to tell their friends and colleagues about your product or service.

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Roles Involved in UX Strategy 

Now let’s break it down further on who needs to understand UX strategy internally, starting with how UX strategy is an important part of various roles in your organization:

• Developers - Just like a code roadmap, developers need a roadmap for UX strategy that helps them build a product that increases a user’s experience. The last thing developers want to do is go back to the drawing board and do a complete redesign unless it’s refactoring or improving from a code-level perspective.
• Project Managers - Since project managers are aware of the milestones and objectives for product features and releases, they also need to understand how UX strategy should be aligned with overall business objectives. A UX strategy helps project managers coordinate cross-functional teams and manage timelines.
• Directors and Managers - Understanding UX strategy as a director or manager helps you engage with project managers and helps you have a conversation around user experience with your superiors.
• Chief Technology Officers (CTOs) - It’s important for CTOs to understand UX strategy to make better decisions on technology stack, platform choices, and system architecture, things that all line up to help create a better user experience.
• UX Designers - A UX strategy provides UX designers with a clear vision and objectives, which is needed to create user-centered design solutions that also align with business goals.

Often developers, project managers, directors and managers, CTOs, and UX designers are not aware of UX strategy, or even where to begin. That’s where I come in with this article. Below I’ll share with you some of my experiences as a UX strategy consultant and how I help organizations whether they are just getting started with UX strategy or they need advanced UX strategy consulting. Regardless, I can handle all phases of user experience from strategy to design to implementation.

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Methods Used in UX Strategy 

Often UX strategists will start with a discovery phase which includes user research such as surveys, interviews, and contextual inquiries to understand user needs. Along with user research, UX strategists work on creating user personas, which are profiles that represent target users, their demographics, goals, and frustrations.Here’s a simple, high-level overview of the flow of UX strategy:

1. Discovery
2. Competitive Analysis
3. User Research
4. User Personas
5. Customer Journey Mapping
6. Wireframes and Prototypes
7. A/B Testing
8. Content Strategy
9. Usability Testing

I won’t go into too many details in this post because there is a lot to cover in terms of methods used in UX strategy and UX design. Instead, I’ll create a series of posts that cover some of these methods with instructions and workshops you can attend to learn more. I’ll describe the key components of UX strategy and the tools UX strategists and UX designers use to bring the UX strategy to life.

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Key Components of UX Strategy

There are several key components of UX strategy. To start, the focus of UX strategy should be the user experience in how it aligns with business goals. These goals can be broken down by role and by overall company objectives. But since this is a beginner’s guide, let’s focus on how beginning UX strategy should start with aligning UX basics with business goals to deliver a functional, usable product, and make it specific to the audiences mentioned earlier. Although anyone new to UX can learn from this article regardless of role. So if you’re a graphic designer wanting to learn UX strategy or CEO, or anyone in between, keep reading to learn how you can better familiarize yourself with the user experience (UX) strategy methodology.A beginner UX strategy lays the groundwork for creating user-centric products, and includes, but is not limited to, the following:

• Vision Statement - According to Customer Insights Hub - Dovetail, a UX strategy vision statement defines a clear vision that articulates the desired user experience and aligns with business goals.
• Discovery - The process of identifying user needs, business goals, market trends, and technical constraints before UX design begins.
• User Research - Gathering insights into user behaviors, needs, and motivations through methods like interviews and surveys.
• Competitive Analysis - Evaluating competitors to identify opportunities for differentiation and improvement.
• User Personas - Creating profiles of target users to guide design decisions.
• Customer Journey Mapping - Visualizing the steps users take to achieve their goals, identifying pain points and opportunities for improvement.
• Wireframes and Prototypes - Developing low-fidelity designs to test and iterate on ideas before full-scale development.
• Usability Testing - Assessing the product's ease of use by observing real users interacting with prototypes or live versions.
• Alignment with Business Goals - Making sure the UX strategy supports the company’s objectives and market position.
• Success Metrics - Establishing key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure the effectiveness of the UX strategy, such as user satisfaction and task completion rates.
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The above key components are a small part of an overall user experience (UX) strategy and only touch on what a beginner to UX strategy should focus on. There are more aspects to UX strategy for intermediate and advanced UX strategy components, which I’ll define in future posts.

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Tools Used in UX Strategy

As a beginner to UX strategy, you’ll need to be familiar with several tools UX strategists and experienced UX designers use to start implementing user-centric designs. Some of the most popular tools, listed below, help to visualize, organize, and execute a UX strategy

Wireframing and Prototyping Tools

‍Tools to design and test user interfaces before development:

• Figma - A collaborative, cloud-based design tool for wireframes, prototypes, and design systems. Figma is considered the industry standard due to its flexibility and ability to handle all aspects of UX design. 
• Adobe XD - A design and prototyping tool that allows users to create user interfaces (UI) and user experiences (UX) for websites, mobile apps, and other applications.
• Sketch - A vector-based design tool used by macOS users.
• Balsamiq - A tool to create low-fidelity wireframes for quick idea generation.
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‍User Research and Testing Tools‍

Tools to gather insights about user behaviors, needs, and pain points:

• Lyssna - A user research platform that helps companies create and share online tests to evaluate their product's user experience.
• Lookback - Record user testing sessions and allow real-time observations.
• Dovetail - Organize and analyze user research data.
• Hotjar - Track heatmaps, click patterns, and user feedback for websites.
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‍Collaboration and Project Management Tools

Tools to align teams on UX goals and track progress:

• Trello - A web-based project management tool that helps teams organize, plan, and collaborate on projects.
• Asana - A software application that allows teams to plan, organize, and collaborate on projects by creating tasks, assigning them to team members, setting due dates, and tracking progress.
• Miro - A collaborative whiteboarding tool for brainstorming, journey mapping, and workshops.
• Slack - A popular cloud-based messaging app that helps teams collaborate and work together.
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‍Data Analysis and Metrics Tools‍

Tools to measure and analyze user interactions and behaviors:

• Google Analytics - A free tool that helps website and app owners understand how users interact with their content including user traffic, behavior, and conversions.
• Crazy Egg - Visualize click heatmaps and scroll depth.
• Mixpanel - Get detailed analytics on user behavior within apps or websites.
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‍Design System Management Tools‍

Tools to maintain consistency across products:

• Storybook - Create and organize UI components for design systems.
• ZeroHeight - Document and share design systems for collaboration.

The list above is not comprehensive. There are dozens of tools available to help UX strategists and UX designers perform daily UX tasks including research, ideation, prototyping, surveys, and documentation. It’s important to note that UX strategists and UX designers may not use all the tools listed.

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The Role of a UX Designer in UX Strategy

According to ProductPlan, a UX designer’s primary focus is on increasing overall user satisfaction with a product by continually seeking ways to improve the product experience, such as making interactions faster, easier, and more enjoyable. UX strategy, if done correctly, always has a UX design component and requires the skills and knowledge of a UX designer, sometimes referred to as a UX UI designer. A UX designer works closely with the product manager or program manager, occasionally both, to determine goals, user navigation, and user experience flows throughout the application. In almost all cases, a UX designer will design wireframes or move into interactive mockups in Figma.

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Resources to Learn More About UX Strategy

Now that you have an idea as to what UX strategy is, why it’s important, who it’s for, some key components of UX strategy, and popular tools used by UX strategists and UX designers, you probably want to start learning how to get started with UX strategy. I’m working on content for intermediate to advanced UX strategy. In the meantime, if you have any questions or feedback, reach out to me at hi@supraelastic.com or Book a Call if you want to discuss how your organization can get started with a UX strategy.