UX Strategy: Sketching the Way to Success

Picture this: Your potential customer lands on your app or website and clicks somewhere only to find out that it’s taking forever to load, or worse, it doesn’t work at all. Frustrating right? What should have been a simple task turned out to be an annoying situation. The clientele you were dreaming of is now abandoning your cart, closing your tab, and swearing never to return. This would not be the case if you had a solid UX strategy in the first place.

Founder and CEO of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, has perfectly worded that, “If you make customers unhappy in the physical world, they might each tell six friends. If you make customers unhappy on the internet, they can each tell 6,000.”

It is super important to understand that the user is king and not your content. If your user experience is poor, no matter how exceptional your content is, your brand will fall flat. Therefore, it’s not only nice to have but necessary to offer a flawless website with exceptional usability.

This is where a UX strategy comes in to create winning products that meet the unique needs of various users and businesses. This article will shed light on what exactly a UX strategy is, how it is important, and how to build an effective UX plan.

Let’s dive straight into it.

What is UX strategy?

A UX strategy is a plan or set of rules given to the design team to create successful products. A UX plan should be devised by keeping the user’s problems in mind. However, the real trick is to balance an enterprise UX strategy with the goals of the business in mind and the brand’s unique identity.

Moreover, it is important to ensure that every stage of the user’s journey is a positive experience for the customer and the business. This shows that UX research and strategy look at the bigger picture as it should consider all touch points to create an excellent experience. As a result, it’s also important to create a strategy before the strategic UX design process begins.

Any user who has to face slower loading times, confusing navigation, unclickable buttons, intrusive pop-ups, unclear CTAs, broken links, and cluttered content will give up on your site. That’s what we call bad UX. This can only be prevented if you have a good strategy in place, as that would give you direction and keep you focused throughout the design process to create high-performing applications.

It would help if you asked the following questions while drawing a UX strategy to ensure it covers all the necessary factors.

• What do our users want?
• What are our business goals?
• What’s our brand identity
• What design process should our team adopt to meet all the above requirements?

4 Principles of UX Strategy

The entire UX strategy framework rests on a few essential factors as they make a cohesive plan to achieve an excellent user experience. Jaime Levy, a UX strategist, introduced the “4 Tenets of UX Strategy” in her book, UX Strategy: How to Devise Innovative Digital Products that People Want. These are the foundations of creating a good UX strategy that creates products that not only fulfill user needs but also align with business goals.

Let’s have a look at them.

1. Business Strategy: The business strategy is a company’s vision about what it wants to deliver and achieve. It includes the guidelines, direction, main objectives, competitive advantage, and revenue streams.

2. Value innovation: This can be defined as “the simultaneous pursuit of differentiation and low cost, creating a leap in value for both buyers and the company,” as described by Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne. This is when businesses find a sustainable business model. They come up with innovative strategies to make a fruitful return on investment.

3. Validated user research: It has been estimated that every year 30,000 products are created, but 95% of them fail. Do you know why? That’s because their value is not realized. This is why validation is necessary to ensure users find value in your product. Some way you can conduct validated user research is by

• User interviews
• Field studies
• Focus groups
• Card sorting

4. Killer UX design: An exceptional UX design is super important if you want a high conversion of your product. For that, it’s important to build user-friendly and accessible applications. The best way to create successful designs is to keep UX laws, heuristic evaluation, and design principles in mind.

Why is creating a UX Strategy important?

How to Build Your UX Strategy?

Building a UX strategy involves certain essential steps that are necessary to follow to build intuitive and smooth digital products. Let’s have a look at them.

Identify the end user’s needs.

The first step in building an effective UX strategy and design plan is to thoroughly research the end user to understand their unique needs and goals. This way, you can build winning products that fulfill the user’s requirements and are according to their preference.

Therefore, to create a killer user experience and user interface design strategy, dig deep while researching your target audience. A good approach to get detailed knowledge and insights about your target audience is by adopting the lean UX strategy, as it focuses more on the design than the deliverable. This results in the creation of top-tier products with reduced waste.

Define your Business Goals

The next step is to define your business goals so that you can create a UX plan that aligns with your company’s mission and identity. Put your strategic UX design hat on and ensure that your blueprint addresses both user needs and business goals. This way, the product will cover all essential aspects that guarantee long-term success.

Start speaking to company owners and stakeholders from various sectors, including the leadership and production team. This way, you can understand the company’s missions, values, code of conduct, and direction. You should also know how different teams outline and measure the success of the product so that your UX strategy can include every factor.

Competitive analysis

It has been estimated that 90% of Fortune 500 companies use competitive analysis to get an edge over their rivals. This is an important process in creating a UX strategy as it gives you knowledge about

• Who are your competitors
• What are they doing
• What are they not doing
• What are their strengths and weaknesses
• Market gaps
• How you can make your product stand out
• How you can deliver a superior user experience
• What to expect from the industry
• Insights about your competitor’s UX strategy

Validate your user research to stay user-centered

You don’t want to build a product that only looks good but falls flat when it comes to usability. You want to create products that your users want to use. This can be ensured by getting feedback from your target audience. A few ways to do that is through

• Interviews and questionnaires
• Surveys
• Card sorting
• Field studies
• A/B testing

Document any data inconsistencies

The value you think your product will deliver needs to be tested for validation with real users. Suppose the product’s data doesn’t match your UX plan; it’s essential to rethink your strategy and design planning.

Create the UX vision

Once you have seen the full picture, it’s time to define your UX vision statement and get started. This will include what you want to achieve and where you want to get in the industry. Your UX vision will be your central focus in creating the product, and this statement will be applicable throughout the design process and even after that in the long run.

The UX vision statement will not only describe the user’s experience and journey with your product but also remind you about your business goals so that you stay focused.

This is an effective tool as it helps to unite the team around a common purpose and keep them focused. It’s no less than a guiding star that helps designers at every step of product development and design. The UX vision statement shapes your UX strategy as it defines the user’s needs and your business’s long-term goals.

• A UX vision statement can be made by answering the following questions
• What type of user experience would you like to give?
• How will your UX strategy help the end users?
• How will this benefit your company?
• How is the solution you have picked better than other alternatives?
• How will you stand out from your competition?
• What will be the long-term result?

A good example of a user experience vision statement can be seen in IKEA: – “To offer a wide range of well-designed, functional home furnishing products at prices so low that as many people as possible will be able to afford them.”

Break your UX vision into small goals

After you have set the UX vision containing your mission and direction, it’s time to break them into small goals so that they are manageable and actionable.

The best way to get started on implementing your UX strategy is by creating multiple small goals, each for a different purpose. To make sure that the work for every goal is being done in the right direction, always ask yourself two things:

1. What does the business get out of it

2. What does the user get out of it?

After that, it’s important to measure the success of the product by setting a metric that you will be targeting. For instance, if you aim to simplify the checkout process for users on your online store (user objective) and thereby lower the number of abandoned carts (business objective), your target could be a 75% decrease in abandoned carts or a 75% rise in completed purchases.

Document your UX plan

Once you have decided on everything, it’s time to write your plan, which will include the goals, process, steps, outcome, iteration, etc. It is necessary to aware your team about the plan of action.

There is no need to drill deep into the details of your UX strategy process as, at this stage, you’re just defining the overall initiatives through a bird’s eye view so that you can get a few steps closer to your objectives.

It’s also crucial to consider a timeline, which will vary depending on the company’s approach to goal-setting and progress tracking. Some companies follow a quarterly model (in which case you can structure your UX strategy plan around Q1, Q2, Q3, and Q4), while others prefer shorter cycles.

Pro tip: Don’t forget that just like UX itself, your UX strategy will need adjustments and refinements. Avoid getting too fixated on setting rigid goals and timelines. The key is to have a clear vision that everyone agrees on and a plan for achieving it. You’ll figure out the specifics as you go along.

Conduct organized experiments and learn from the outcomes.

Creating a high-performing product that resonates with users requires enthusiasm to experiment and accept setbacks. Let your UX strategy direct your actions as you navigate your design process. Keep validating both the strategy and your design as you progress. Develop a minimum viable product (MVP), put it to the test with actual users, and enhance it based on their feedback. \Top of Form

Examples of Companies that Use UX Strategy

While creating a product, it’s best to look at real-life examples of companies that use UX strategies to create designs. Let’s have a look at some of them.

Amazon Prime Video’s Personalized Experience

Amazon Prime Video has an excellent UX strategy as it excessively enhances user engagement by providing customized content based on the user’s viewing history. Amazon Prime uses algorithm-driven recommendations to offer different and personalized content to every user. This not only improves the user experience but also encourages longer view times as the viewer stays hooked on their favorite shows and movies.

Duolingo’s Gamified Learning Approach

Duolingo’s UX strategy focuses on providing an informative and fun learning experience at the same time. They gamify the education process of language learning. They offer regular quizzes, tests, streak counts, and rewards so that users stay pumped to enjoy the learning experience. Duolingo’s superb platform increases user engagement and brand loyalty as users keep coming back to them.

Spotify’s Seamless Cross-platform Experience

One of the best UX strategy examples can also be seen in Spotify as it ensures a smooth user experience throughout tall platforms like mobile, web, and desktop. All of their platforms can easily be synced in when signed in from different devices using the same account. They offer innovative features like synchronized playlists and immediate track resuming so that users can enjoy a smooth and flawless experience from any device.

Airbnb’s Clear and Intuitive Interface

Airbnb’s UX strategy process is simple, clean, and straightforward, which is the major factor in its extraordinary engagement and conversion. Its easy-to-use interface and streamlined search and booking accommodation process make it one of the best examples of UX strategy. Airbnb provides a smooth and hassle-free experience with crisp, top-notch images, simple navigation, and search filters that are a breeze to use. This encourages users to return again and again.

Google Maps’ Real-time Updates

Google Maps integrates real-time updates into its UX strategy so that users can have access to the most accurate and up-to-date information while navigating. Other than traffic updates and estimated arrival times, Google Maps also provides information on public transit schedules, nearby points of interest, and even real-time data on popular places like restaurants or stores. This comprehensive approach not only enhances user experience by offering relevant and timely data but also empowers users to make informed decisions while traveling. Whether it’s finding the quickest route to a destination or discovering new places nearby, Google Maps strives to provide a smooth and helpful experience for its users.

Kickstart your UX Strategy with Denovers

Want to give your customers the experience of a lifetime through your products? Let Denovers help you craft a holistic and strategic UX strategy. Our expert designers will deeply study your niche, company goals, and target audience’s needs and do competitor analysis to come up with a customized UX strategy template for your business.

Our way of designing UX strategies not only helps businesses keep users hooked on their platforms but also keeps them coming back, which results in long-term success. Denovers also ensure to align the UX design process with your business goals and mission.

Ready to scale your products and bring insane conversions through killer UX design?

Final Words

Creating winning digital products is not only limited to fancy interfaces and aesthetic layouts. Infact, it’s not even about an interface. It’s about how easy and enjoyable your product is to use. That’s why you need a solid UX strategy that covers everything from user needs to business goals. Your UX strategy should be like a guiding star that points you in the right direction and keeps you on the right track throughout the design process. When you’re deep down in your design process, it’s crucial to regularly get back to your UX strategy to justify your design decisions.

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