Last week I read an excellent article by Robert Fabricant on “The Rise of UX Leadership”. The article heralds the rise of UX in business and suggests that UX-Centric organization has supplanted the Marketing/Sales driven organization in terms of being the best driver of long-term growth.
What is it?
UX means user experience. This broad term describes all aspects of the end-user’s interaction with a company, its services, and its products. UX is the sum experience that a customer has with a product. This is not just the value they get from using a product but the emotions that a product creates for a customer.
Why does it matter?
Emotion matters, a great user experience can prevent your customer from ever looking at a competitor and a bad user experience can move a customer to use one. Our world is inundated with personalized marketing messages, offers and all sorts of shiny candy designed to get a customer to use a product. Targeted marketing has growth exponentially with the growth of the internet, so much that many customers are beginning to ignore these messages or at a minimum, customers have started to distrust marketing messages more. People trust their experiences and that’s why it’s so important to deliver a great one to your customers.
UX Leadership Tips for Executives and Entrepreneurs
1. Educate yourself
Learn the language of UX. Know enough to be dangerous. There are a number of excellent online resources to get you up to speed. Spend a few hours a week getting comfortable and then continue to learn each week. Here are a few places to start;
Books:
The Design of Everyday Things by Donald A. Norman.
Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug
Blogs:
2. Participate in your company’s UX
Attend testing sessions as an observer first, then as a participant. See customers interact with your product and watch the way your team interacts with them. Ask lots of questions, most importantly, “what are we learning”.
3. Lead by example
Inspire others to learn about UX. Show that UX matters by investing time in understanding how your customers are experiencing your product. Help others learn how to translate customer interactions to business results.
4. Use your product everyday
There is simply no substitute for using your product. Become your products most engaged user. Document your thrills and frustrations. Build your team around your user experience.
Have a product that needs UX love or just want to learn more? Give me a call at (617) 871-0882 or contact me here.
