Whether you are a team of one, or in a big UX team, at some point in your career, you will find yourself having to demonstrate and explain the value of UX in a project or even in a company, if you haven’t already.
As part of a UX conference on the theme, "how do you UX", I explore ways we can have these dialogues with varying audiences. The discussion can vary from explaining what UX is and hosting/ facilitating workshops internally to show the process to your peers, to the ROI of UX to senior management in order to resource additional budgeting, or even to clients as new business pitches.
This presentation will discuss barriers that might come up and techniques on how to sell UX to different audiences.
2. @katkmeow
FOR FUN
@katkrichards
ABOUT ME
- Been a UX team of one
- Been a part of a small team of UX
- Also currently at a place where
there is UX Buy-in and budgeting,
but establishing a UX Process
WORK
4. If you think good
design is
expensive, you
should look at the
cost of bad design.
Dr. Ralf Speth
CEO of Jaguar Land Rover
https://usabilitygeek.com/better-ux-before-ui/
5. TODAY’S AGENDA
1 Why is there a barrier to UX
adoption?
2 Who is our audience and what
motivates them?
3 How to adjust approach for your
audience
4 Takeaways
5 Q & A
8. Barriers to UX Adoption
MAIN BARRIERS
- Don’t know what UX is
- Lack of management support
- Internal team members see UX as another
obstacle
- Being UX team of 1 – no resources or training
- Company doesn’t prioritize UX
- Not included in meetings at all
NO UX CURRENTLY EXPANDING UX VALUE
- Multiple UX teams conflicting with agendas
and leadership
- Not allowing enough time in a project to
include UX deliverables
- Being brought in too late in the process
- Needing more resources and budget
- Clients don’t prioritize UX
10. DISCLAIMER
In order for you to truly
sell the value of UX,
your company has to be
ready to listen.
!!
Ask yourself…
1. Is there anyone at the strategic level championing UX
currently?
2. Is there anyone at the product level championing UX?
3. Where can UX integrate in the current process?
4. How can you help teams work better toward a UX vision?
5. What does your company know about your customers
today? How do they know it? How can you learn more?
6. What type of culture is your company? Is it engineer-
centric, design-centric, sales team centric?
11. Caring about
different things
Understanding who you are pitching to
matters because they have different
motivations. It’ll also drive HOW you pitch
the value of UX.
Knowing your audience
“How do we bring in more revenue?”
“How do we reduce the cost?”
Manage-
ment
“How do we get the job done most efficiently
and done right?”
Internal
“How do we have happy consumers
and more sales?”
Clients
13. Senior Management
Challenges
How do I know this
will add value?
How much will this
cost?
Isn’t it just common
sense?
Will it be worth the
cost?
How will we measure
this?
How will it impact
the bottom line?
14. “Over 1 trillion US dollars is spent on IT projects annually (according to IEEE’s Why
Software Fails), but 15% of those projects will be pulled before completion. IEEE identified
12 main causes for project failure and 25% of them are UX mismanagement.”
Senior Management
Challenges
https://uxplanet.org/how-to-calculate-the-roi-of-your-ux-activities-b7ba7023246a
•Badly defined system requirements
•Lack of alignment across customers, developers and users
•Conflicts of interest among stakeholders
15. Subscription/ Potential subscriptions x 100 = conversion rate (%)
Senior Management
What motivates them?
Conversion
# of users/ # of unique users in segment x 100 = drop off rate (%)Drop off rate
(# errors) x (avg. recovery time)@(employee cost) x (# of employees) = savings
Fewer UX errors = Fewer conversion drop offs
Reduce Errors
(Time saved) @ (employee cost) x (# of employees) = savings
Increase
Productivity
16. year in cost savings
Ex: (4 hr/week) @ ($30/hr) x (50
employees) = $6,000/ week
$312,000
BOOSTED PRODUCTIVITY
year in cost savings
Ex:(6 errors/week) x (30 mins) @
($30/hour) x (25 employees) =
$5,625/week
$300,000
REDUCTION IN ERRORS
Senior Management
What motivates them?
(# of errors)
(avg. recovery time) @ (employee cost)
(# of employees)
cost savings
X
(time saved) @ (employee cost)
(# of employees)
cost savings
X
https://www.toptal.com/designers/ux/roi-of-ux-convince-executives
17. Internal Team
Who are they?
tDEV TEAM
The ones executing
and building – also
closest allies
tDESIGN TEAM
Closest allies
tCLIENT SERVICE
Holder of budgets,
timelines and client
relationships
tPROJECT MANAGER
Concern with process
and timelines on
deliverables
18. Internal Team
Challenges
How does this affect
me and my role?
How does it impact
timing?
How do we
incorporate it into
the project plan?
How much value will
it bring?
How can we sell it to
the client?
We know our users
from experience. Do
we really need this?
19. If you think good
design is
expensive, you
should look at the
cost of bad design.
Dr. Ralf Speth
CEO of Jaguar Land Rover
https://usabilitygeek.com/better-ux-before-ui/
22. Clients
Challenges
How much is it going
to cost me?
What’s the ROI for
this?
How can I justify the
additional cost?
How can I justify the
additional time?
How do I know this
will add value?
Is it really a priority?
25. Internal Team
The approach
CHALLENGES OPPORTUNITIES
Don’t know what UX is Educate and show them how – bring them
along on the journey and show them
snippets of the process to build allies
How to fit it in the process/ lack of time Start small and show progress/ value
How will this impact me? PM & Client service = identify what works
earlier on to eliminate rebuilds in the end
Design = test and have data to support
solutions instead of gut feeling
Dev = Build the right tool for our users after
it’s validated
Make it fun and exciting!
26. Senior Management
The approach
CHALLENGES OPPORTUNITIES
Don’t know what UX is Establish a co-creation process and get them
involved early on whiteboard sessions and
user test snippets
How to start UX? Start small- show where we’re at currently on
projects and where we want to be with gap
analysis
How will it impact bottom line? Show numbers and data to back the value-
how much time did we save without doing
rework in dev? Show how UX is measured
27. Clients
The approach
CHALLENGES OPPORTUNITIES
Don’t know what UX is Educate and show them value of doing UX
Will it cost more time & money?
What is the value it brings? Show numbers and data to back the value-
how much time did we save without doing
rework in dev? Show how UX is measured
and take them along the process – it’s a
collaborative effort
Show them it’ll cost more if we skip it now
and have to rebuild later on
28. Understanding the different types of clients will also
help you pitch the value of UX differently
Clients
Who are they?
t
DATA CLIENT
Back it with data and evidence through
testing, user research and design theory.
t
VISUAL CLIENT
Showing style tiles & validating data with
a/b tests
t
DETAIL CLIENT
Bring them into whiteboarding sessions as part
of the process and give them opportunities to
provide feedback
30. Remember…
Key Takeaways
tSTART SMALL
Implement UX on a
smaller project and bring
people in early as part of
the process
tTOOLKIT
Once you have allies-
give them the tools to
spread the knowledge
and advocate
tDATA
Have empathy and
persuade with data –
show them something
tangible like analytics
tHAVE A PLAN
Show how UX can be
measured before, during
and after a project to sell
the value of UX
31. What challenges do you come across
now? And how would you handle them
differently from today’s learnings?
Final Remark
32. Q & A
Pt 5
“Focus on the user
and all else will
follow.”
Google philosophy
33. HOW TO REACH ME
LET’S GET IN TOUCH
https://www.linkedin.com/in/katkrichards/
https://instagram.com/katkmeow
Milwaukee, WI
Kat Richards
katkrichards@gmail.com