How to improve UX Maturity
Consumption habits are evolving, and with them, so are all the digital platforms that users interact with. The time spent browsing, shopping online, or simply engaging socially through mobile devices is shrinking, and companies understand that this ever-changing pace requires active user comprehension — something that can only be achieved through the inclusion of a user-focused team: the UX team.
Focusing efforts on not just understanding and listening to users’ needs, but also on how users perform, interact, and move towards specific goals opens up a vast opportunity for the product being developed to meet all necessary requirements and exceed expectations. The quality standard is becoming increasingly demanding.
As we’ve mentioned, companies recognize that it’s extremely important to incorporate a group of professionals focused on user experience: UX researchers, content designers, UI designers, developers, etc. However, to successfully achieve objectives, it’s not enough to simply add these professionals to the team. The company must successfully implement a user-centered professional mindset, integrate maneuvering and strategy perspectives into the business model, and give this perspective the importance it deserves.
Factors of UX Maturity
This practice is known as UX maturity, a measurable quality that reflects the state of implementation and quality of product design capabilities.
There are several factors introduced by Norman Nielsen that indicate a company’s level of maturity in implementing user experience-centered practices:
- Culture: The company not only knows what user experience is but also understands how to address user needs, adopt a UX professional’s attitude, and incorporate their expertise into business strategies.
- Procedures: The company knows the phases involved in creating effective user experiences and understands how they should be connected, from ideation and research to definition, design, development, and testing. Iteration is always present to improve the product and better meet user needs.
- Strategy: Through user experience-focused leadership, team-task planning, and prioritization of objectives based on available resources, a better and more effective vision of procedures can be achieved.
- Results: The company defines expected results, gathers and understands the obtained results, and acts on them to achieve better outcomes and continually improve with the end-user in mind.
As we can see, UX maturity is directly linked to how other business and development team members perceive and apply a user-centered perspective. It’s not just about adding UX design members or giving them freedom to act on strategic visualization.
Levels of UX Maturity and improvement strategies
The degree to which a company achieves higher or lower UX maturity is expressed through the following scale of overall performance:
Level 1 — Initial implementation
At this level, the global user perspective is practically non-existent. User focus is not considered when ideating and defining the real scope of projects, putting them at risk.
Improvement strategies:
- Education and awareness: Organize workshops and seminars on UX for all levels of the company, focusing on how UX affects business outcomes.
- Hiring experts: Bring in at least one UX professional to act as a catalyst for change within the company.
- Pilot projects: Initiate small projects that integrate UX practices to demonstrate their value.
Level 2 — Interest
Here, the company is aware of user experience and understands its importance, attempting to incorporate this perspective into its processes, but in an incomplete or superficial way. Resource or time limitations affect this perspective.
Improvement strategies:
- Resource allocation: Ensure a dedicated budget and time for UX research and design.
- Multidisciplinary teams: Create teams that include UX designers, working in collaboration with other departments.
- UX evaluation: Implement periodic UX reviews for ongoing projects, using feedback to improve.
Level 3 — Initial processes
User experience is gaining more importance in the company’s actions. While not yet a priority, user research processes are being incorporated, beyond just design and heuristic applications.
Improvement strategies:
- Establish UX metrics: Define key performance indicators (KPIs) specific to user experience.
- Deepen user research: Expand research methodologies to include a broader range of techniques, such as in-depth interviews or usability testing.
- Iteration and agility: Adopt agile methodologies that allow for quick iteration based on user feedback.
Level 4 — UX commitment
User experience starts to become key. The discipline begins to be consistently adopted within internal teams. However, a lack of systematic processes indicates that there’s room for improvement, and the focus on aesthetic design needs to be balanced with functional priorities.
Improvement strategies:
- Integrate UX into corporate strategy: Ensure UX is a central part of long-term strategic planning.
- Develop UX leadership: Foster leaders within the UX team who can influence decisions at the executive level.
- Collaboration and visibility: Increase visibility of UX efforts across the company through regular demonstrations of how design impacts business outcomes.
Level 5 — Implementation
User experience becomes one of the core pillars. Resources are allocated to UX tasks, usability, heuristic focus, and design. Work processes follow agile methodologies focused on user experience.
Improvement strategies:
- Optimization and refinement: Focus on continuous optimization of UX processes to increase efficiency.
- Expand UX capacity: Train non-UX employees in basic UX principles to foster a user-centered design culture.
- Benchmarking: Conduct competitive benchmarking to identify areas for improvement.
Level 6 — Global integration
Product development processes are fully aligned with user experience. Different teams coordinate with each other, and design and strategy complement each other to create a comprehensive vision for the entire product creation process. The company is self-aware of its maturity level, understanding where there is room for improvement to maintain an effective user perspective.
Improvement strategies:
- Continuous innovation: Encourage UX innovation with a dedicated budget for exploring new tools and techniques.
- Global feedback: Implement feedback systems that integrate the customer’s voice at all levels of decision-making.
- Sustainability and UX ethics: Promote practices that ensure designs are ethically sustainable and socially responsible.
The big question of how a company can self-evaluate and determine its level of UX maturity is answered by the very practice that helps them achieve these levels: internal observation and research. Understanding how different members of various departments interact with and comprehend user experience allows the company to focus efforts on improving user-centered work, enhancing product development, and improving team dynamics.
This is a translation of the following article from our corporate website:
