Whether you’re trying to learn how to become a UX designer or building a team of T-shaped talent with complementary UX skills, consider these 12 competencies to ensure you have all the ingredients for success. We’ll be digging deeper into each one in the coming months. 

In the summer of 1953, explorer and philanthropist Edmund Hillary became a pioneer within the mountaineering community when he successfully summited Mount Everest. It was the first time climbers had ever ascended the 29,000-foot peak and lived to tell the tale.

The trek, however, wouldn't have been possible had Hillary embarked on the journey alone. With him was his climbing companion and sherpa Tenzing Norgay, a Nepalese mountaineer who played an integral role in the expedition's success.

The two relied heavily on each other's complementary skills and experience to reach the summit. While Hillary had the equipment and financial backing to make the trip possible, Norgay knew the mountain and its surrounding wilderness better than Hillary ever could. Norgay's expertise played an integral role in the success of Hillary's mission.

Norgay and Hillary both understood what many organizations are just beginning to recognize...

> Groundbreaking achievements aren't possible without the passion, expertise and creativity of multiple people willing and able to work together as a team.

Most importantly, however, it's the inherent leadership skills and maturity that each team member possesses that makes innovative work possible. Just as Hillary and Norgay were both leaders in their own right, great UX designers bring leadership skills and maturity to everything they do — even if those skills are leveraged to support and influence rather than dictate and control.

This is why __leadership and maturity__ is the 12th and final UX competency, and perhaps the most important contribution UX professionals can make to organizational success.

# Championing UX Maturity from the Inside Out

Within a larger organization or legacy enterprise, the move toward UX maturity is usually a product of external influence. As other companies begin infusing usability and UX design principles into their products, organizations must up their UX game if they don't want to fall behind.

This approach can be effective if an organization's primary goal is to keep pace with their competitors, but it's rarely a successful approach for organizations who want to become "best in breed" within their industry. This is where the impact of the individual plays a crucial role for the organization, and how the people within an organization can help it adapt to quickly changing user demands.

Rather than waiting for their competitors to raise the bar, organizations whose individual employees possess a leadership mindset are capable of becoming true pioneers within their industries. This is because innovation doesn't begin and end with the C-suite — it is developed and nurtured within every level of the organization.

> Only when UX thinking permeates every silo and department of an organization can it meaningfully mature and become truly user-centric.

## The Organizational UX Maturity Scale

As organizations become aware of UX design principles and how it applies to their products and services, they move up to higher levels of UX maturity. The higher up on the UX maturity scale an organization is, the earlier and more consistently UX principles are applied to business decisions.

To understand how organizations become more user-centered, let's take a closer look at each stage of UX maturity:

![July Internal Image UX Maturity](//images.ctfassets.net/6ygji0ixcksy/68JmOLYkkSqgbUgx7PzK5I/1ff537ba6e8c7d30d2180c611636a1d0/July_Internal_Image_UX_Maturity_2x__1_.png)

### Level 0: Unrecognized

Organizations at this level of UX maturity have virtually no understanding of the value of UX. Individual employees as well as executive leadership are either completely unaware of or uninterested in how UX can and should impact the organization.

__Things you might hear in a Level 0 organization:__

- "User experience design doesn't apply to what we do."
- "Technical specifications and business goals are the most important considerations for our work."
- "We already know what our customers want and need — we don't need UX research."

### Level 1: Aware

Organizations at this level of UX maturity are just becoming aware of the value of UX, but have not yet applied it to the work they do. Individual employees and executive leadership may be aware of basic UX design principles, but aren't sure how to apply them.

__Things you might hear in a Level 1 organization:__

- "Could UX design principles have made this project or product even better?"
- "UX research would be helpful in understanding what our users want and need, but we don't know where to start."
- "We know user experience design is valuable, but we have no idea where and how to apply it."

### Level 2: Considered

Organizations at this level of UX maturity are invested enough in UX to consider its impact within a project, but usually later than they should. Employees may apply certain user experience design principles to their work, but do so inconsistently and usually too late in their processes. Organizations at this level are guilty of the "throw some UX on it" approach, but do demonstrate some understanding of how UX can enhance their products and customer experience.

__Things you might hear in a Level 2 organization:__

- "This project could be a good opportunity to apply UX design principles."
- "Some of our team members consider user needs and user research before coding begins, while others apply UX design principles only after coding is complete."
- "We involve user experience designers in product development, but only after we've begun the design and coding phase of the project."

### Level 3: Committed

Employees within a Level 3 organization are likely to say things like "UX is important to our company, and has value within every department." Their senior and executive leadership have a good understanding of UX, and have even built out a formal UX program within the company. Though there is considerable executive-level buy-in at this level, its application within the organization may still be somewhat inconsistent and only applied to some projects.

__Things you might hear in a Level 3 organization:__

- "We have a dedicated team that's well-versed in user experience, but they are only involved in some projects."
- "Our executive leadership value and understand UX principles, but they aren't always applied consistently across the organization."
- "Only some employees within our company can explain how UX principles impact their work specifically."

### Level 4: Integrated

When an organization has reached a Level 4 on the UX maturity scale, UX design thinking has permeated most or all departments across the organization. Leadership within each department can speak to how UX principles influence their decisions, and UX principles are considered in projects before coding or implementation begins. UX research is likely used for decision-making across the organization.

__Things you might hear in a Level 4 organization:__

- "Almost everyone within our organization can speak to how user experience impacts their work, even if they aren't in a leadership position."
- "UX professionals are involved in most or all decisions within the company, even if their recommendations aren't always carried out."
- "Our executive leadership all recognize and value of investing in UX, and regularly consider user experience design when making business and product decisions."

### Level 5: Engrained

When an organization has reached Level 5 on the UX maturity scale, they could confidently call themselves a user-centric organization. User experience and design thinking are a core part of the company's culture, and often the CEO or another C-suite executive makes UX a part of all strategic conversations. Virtually every decision being made throughout the company is driven and informed by user experience — UX thinking impacts product design, project management, business development and marketing.

__Things you might hear in a Level 5 organization:__

- "User experience principles are intrinsic to our company values — they influence every decision we make and every project we take on."
- "It would be almost impossible to remove user experience principles from our processes."
- "Everyone in our company — even lower-level employees — can confidently explain how UX principles impact their work."

## How Individuals Influence Organization-wide UX Maturity

In today's quickly changing digital landscape, a top-down approach to UX maturity is rarely an effective strategy for long-term success. UX professionals should be empowered by "manage up" when it comes to UX thinking. These principles should influence not just leadership's decisions, but the entire team.

Individual employees and designers can help drive UX maturity by adopting a leadership mindset and asking questions like:

- Why is design so important? What value does it provide?
- Why are we building this product / service / experience?
- What should this experience be like for our employees and customers?
- How does this feature / idea fit into the big picture?
- How could you make the solution even better?
- What will it take to get people on board and implement this idea?
- Who else needs to be involved?
- How will success be measured and monitored?

__To become a Level 5 organization, employees must be empowered to think like UX designers regardless of their title or role.__ By actively and consistently injecting UX thinking into their work, they can speed organizational UX maturity and help build a user-focused culture.

Meanwhile, executives who embrace UX thinking can give these employees the resources and time they need to create meaningful experiences for their customers. Without executive buy-in, even the most dedicated UX professionals within an organization will struggle to implement UX thinking in a meaningful way.

Just as Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay both adopted a leadership mindset to achieve their shared goal, employees within an organization can't wait for senior leadership to clear a path toward greater UX maturity. Only by taking initiative individually and as a team can UX professionals help their organizations create meaningful experiences their customers have come to expect.


12 Competencies of UX Design

No. 12: Leadership and Maturity

This is the second installment of our series on the [12 Competencies of UX Design](https://drawbackwards.com/blog/the-12-competencies-of-ux-design/).

* * *

When you think of the most admired CEOs and designers of our time, what makes them so great? It’s often their vision: their ability to articulate a meaningful desired outcome.

This is what has made people like Steve Jobs and Elon Musk so successful and revered. It has the same effect on everyday designers. Whether you’re working on a big initiative or an individual task, creating a vision makes all the difference.

A vision statement speeds up decision making.

A vision statement keeps your team and organization aligned.

A vision statement leads to more meaningful products and experiences that attract loyal, like-minded customers.

And it does all of that with just a few words that share a strong, distinct point of view.

> Think of your vision as _what_ you want to achieve and your purpose as _why_ you want to achieve it.

Your product or company vision goes hand-in-hand with [UX design competency #1: knowing your purpose](https://drawbackwards.com/blog/knowing-your-purpose-ux-design-competency-1). Think of your vision as _what_ you want to achieve and your purpose as _why_ you want to achieve it.

Your vision doesn’t need to be long or complex. In fact, the best ones are exactly the opposite. An effective vision:

*   Reinforces the deeper “why” or purpose behind your work
*   Pinpoints a real problem your customers or users often experience
*   Paints a picture of what the future will look and feel like when you solve that problem
*   Is validated by users (Users typically come first in UX design, but this is one of the few scenarios where we recommend that the Product Owner or leader sets their vision first, then completes user research to validate their idea.)

Notice that we didn’t mention anything about what the actual feature, product, service, or experience is. That’s intentional. Your vision doesn’t need to — and shouldn’t — get into the nitty gritty details. It’s a short, high-level, aspirational statement about the outcome or future state that will be achieved as a result of your work.

> Your vision doesn’t need to — and shouldn’t — get into the nitty gritty details. It’s a a short, high-level, aspirational statement about the outcome or future state that will be achieved as a result of your work.

Good vs. Bad Vision Statement Examples
--------------------------------------

Let’s compare a few product and company vision statements to see how this works in real life.

### Facebook Home

In 2013, Facebook released a new product that they were sure was going to be the next big thing for Android users: Facebook Home. The app was essentially a “wrapper” that made Facebook your phone’s home screen.

Facebook’s vision statement for Home was to **“turn an Android phone into a great, living, social phone.”**

Let’s see how it scores:


| Reinforces the deeper “why” or purpose behind the work | Somewhat |
| --------- | --------- |
| Pinpoints a real problem your customers or users often experience | No |
| Paints a picture of what the future will look and feel like when you solve that problem | Yes |
| Validated by users | No |

The Home vision may have sounded cool, but it missed the mark in many ways.

The concept of Home is somewhat related to the company mission (“to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected”) in that Home would make it easier for people to share and connect on Facebook. However, “a great, living, social phone” doesn’t make the link to this mission statement very clear.

The vision statement also didn’t solve a significant problem for enough people. Home was the result of massive internal efforts to deeply integrate Facebook into users’ lives, not a real consumer need. Facebook would have discovered this if they had validated the vision with real people. As [Business Insider](https://www.businessinsider.com/biggest-product-flops-in-history-2016-12#2013-facebook-home-23) noted, “The consensus between reviewers and critics: Home worked only for the most fanatical of users.”

Poor vision was one of the things that led to Home’s fast demise. Within less than a month of being released, the two-year subscription plan dropped from $99 to $0.99, and within a year, the Home team of engineers was disbanded.

> Poor vision was one of the things that led to Facebook Home’s fast demise.

### 23andMe

While Facebook Home failed to gain traction, 23andMe has skyrocketed from a startup to an industry leader (in an entirely new category too!) backed by Google, Johnson & Johnson, and several other big biotech players — thanks, in part, to a meaningful vision.

CEO Anne Wojcicki says her DNA testing and genetic analysis firm has a two-fold vision: **to give people greater access and ownership of their health information, and to revolutionize drug discovery.**

Let’s see how this vision stacks up:


| Reinforces the deeper “why” or purpose behind the work | Yes |
| --- | --- |
| Pinpoints a real problem your customers or users often experience | Yes |
| Paints a picture of what the future will look and feel like when you solve that problem | Yes |
| Validated by users | Yes |

23andMe’s vision scores high on all fronts. It connects back to their purpose of helping people access, understand, and benefit from the human genome. It solves a real problem that multiple audiences validated: Consumers want to better understand their DNA and health without having to go to fancy labs and pay for expensive tests, and drug companies want a way to develop new products that they know will do well in the market. Plus, the vision statement articulates that 23andMe will help both sides reach their goals.

With such a clear, meaningful company vision, it’s no surprise they have been so successful. [Forbes](https://www.forbes.com/sites/erinspencer1/2018/07/18/how-to-grow-scale-a-culture-like-23andme/#3637be6b2b79) reports that 23andMe has received over $490 million in funding, has over 5 million customers in more than 50 countries, and employs over 500 people — proof that creating a solid vision of the desired outcome is a key step to achieving it.

> 23andMe is proof that creating a solid vision of the desired outcome is a key step to achieving it.

A Vision for Victory
--------------------

While it’s tempting to skip creating a vision statement so you can focus on technical skills and “doing the work,” the most successful brands of our time will attest that it has been a key factor in their success. By quickly articulating your design philosophy (starting with your “why” and vision), you and your team will be able to make faster and easier decisions, stay aligned, and build experiences that bring your vision to life.

No. 2: Creating a Vision of the Desired Outcome 

This is the eighth installment of our series on the [12 Competencies of UX Design](https://drawbackwards.com/blog/the-12-competencies-of-ux-design/).

* * *

Think back to the last time you used Waze or Google Maps to drive to an unfamiliar location. Once you clicked “start”, what words did you hear or see? How did those messages help you navigate the road in front of you? How many times did you have to look down at the map to figure out what to do next?

You might not have known it, but as you were listening to your phone chirp directions like “turn left” or “stay in the right lane,” you were experiencing firsthand the impact of great UX writing. 

Whereas previous generations would have had to consult a visual map to determine which roads would lead to their destination, you simply had to listen to instructions built into your navigation app. Those instructions were so good and so clear that you rarely — if ever — had to glance down at your phone.

This is the goal of UX writing. While well organized, beautiful, visually appealing design of a user interface is certainly important in UX, nothing can fully replace the impact of great writing when it comes to helping a user achieve a particular goal (including getting to a new driving destination safely).

In this post, we’ll explore one of the most undervalued and misunderstood elements of UX design: __UX writing__.

> "Making business tools that customers love hinges on crisp simplicity: Bigger ideas and fewer words. More heart, less head — and a voice that's more conversational and human." - Kylie Hansen, Microsoft 

## What is UX Writing?

One of the most common misconceptions about UX writing is that it is synonymous with copywriting. Inexperienced professionals and designers may also assume that any capable marketing copywriter can also create great product copy. 

However, while some copywriters are also skilled UX writers, the purpose of copywriting is entirely different from UX writing. To understand what UX writing is, let’s first look at the different types of writing in the digital landscape:

- __Copywriting__: This is persuasive brand and marketing writing that highlights differentiators and creates brand value in the eyes of the consumer. It’s designed to convince and convert.

- __Instructional Writing__: Instruction writing provides concise instructions about how to do something. It’s clear and without the “frills” of traditional ad or copywriting. 

- __Educational Writing__: Educational writing teaches someone about a concept or idea. Educational writing is usually less goal-oriented than instructional writing and less persuasive than copywriting.

- __UX Writing__: UX writing is the language that helps a user move through an experience without frustration or confusion and with comfort, delight and meaning. Sometimes called microcopy, certain UX writing is attached to specific navigation and interaction points.

![writing types ux writing](//images.ctfassets.net/6ygji0ixcksy/sWlBdYc583OS8sgVIJWIy/4b90196ee93cd76cb4a9c6068568e8a5/writing_types_ux_writing.jpg)
*Source: [UX Collective](https://uxdesign.cc/)*

> Great UX writing is baked into design — it should feel like a part of the workflow.

## Examples of UX Writing

UX writing often includes copy for things like buttons, menu labels, error and success messages, form copy, terms and conditions, and disclaimers. Here are a few examples:

![UX writing example 1](//images.ctfassets.net/6ygji0ixcksy/6JIrkRZRxTKP9fyQ6Ikzxr/33b01df35accffa7d4d7ff8dd049983d/UX_writing_example_1.jpg)

![UX writing example 2](//images.ctfassets.net/6ygji0ixcksy/5t9xHVVBV3ZKn9dgguKy1E/bb2e4d33b83cc615c632755abb74bcbf/UX_writing_example_2.jpg)

![Screen Shot 2019-03-27 at 7.12.33 PM](//images.ctfassets.net/6ygji0ixcksy/4WOq8lqovaTAZM9VnpszL7/46c45cbdc1dfd74611379132b43c82af/Screen_Shot_2019-03-27_at_7.12.33_PM.png)

As a whole, it’s the role of a UX writer to answer questions like:

- What does the user need to know, what are they thinking and needing now?
- What should each screen, prompt and interaction point say?
- How will users work step by step through the interface so they can successfully accomplish their task?
- How will the brand’s personality come through in the experience and on the user interface?
- How will messages and meaning be expressed in as few words and characters as possible?
- How will the value of the product or service be reinforced at each step?
- How will this feature help a user complete a particular step in a workflow more easily?

## Analyzing and Testing UX Writing

Unlike many types of copy or content, UX writing can be tested roughly the same way that UX design is tested. Whereas the quality of copywriting is largely subjective, high-quality UX writing is more measurable. It is only as good as how well it reduces friction and conveys the right meaning in the right moment while helping users achieve a particular goal.

As an example, at Drawbackwards, UX writing is often analyzed within moderated testing scenarios called “think aloud protocols.” In these scenarios, users say what they are thinking and feeling out loud while a moderator records their responses. In this scenario, the quality of UX writing is analyzed by asking questions like:

- Based on what you read, what do you intend to do next? Why?
- What do you expect to happen when you click?
- What do you hope will happen?

Some inexperienced designers and business leaders will often treat UX writing as the “finishing touch” or “decoration” within an interaction. That’s because they often feel that content can simply be “plugged in” to a wireframe or design once it’s been reviewed and approved by stakeholders.

This is a big mistake for a few reasons.

First, since great UX writing is often integral to a workflow and a user’s ability to move through it seamlessly, it’s virtually impossible to test an interaction of workflow without real UX copy. 

Second, most end users don’t distinguish between UX writing and visual design when it comes to digital experiences. Instead, they [“see” text and “read” images](https://www.academia.edu/7354481/Search_for_meaning_a_study_on_the_Cranbrook_Academy_of_Art_s_Graphic_Design_Department "see text read images") and vice versa — both are critical to conveying meaning to an end user.

![See Image - Read Text@2x](//images.ctfassets.net/6ygji0ixcksy/13xiXIu7ymofW7Rl7VwwbB/22e30e03b1329754359f9aa1d314f654/See_Image_-_Read_Text_2x.png)

Regardless of how visually appealing an experience is, if the copy doesn’t help the user move through a workflow successfully, beautiful design is all for nothing.

## What Makes UX Writing Good?

Ultimately, the goal of UX writing is to inform and comfort users as they move through a workflow with as little friction as possible. As a general rule, UX writing should be:

- Clear
- Concise
- Easy to understand
- “Short and sharp” (no frills)
- Goal-oriented
- Consistent

UX writers must also use language that is familiar to a customer, which requires a deep understanding of a user’s [context](https://drawbackwards.com/blog/reducing-friction-context-structure-flow-ux-competency-5/) and an exceptional level of [empathy](https://drawbackwards.com/blog/understanding-your-audience-through-empathy-and-research-ux-design-competency-3/). 

![content as part of ux design process](//images.ctfassets.net/6ygji0ixcksy/56YvUIikvwZjRe7k1Kx9CY/326ef075c926226143191d790d3edce3/content_as_part_of_ux_design_process.jpg)
*We believe UX writers should be a part of the design process from the very beginning, a bit like this. Source: [Microsoft](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/)*

This is why UX writing is a critical UX competency, and why it is such a critical element in the [design thinking process](https://drawbackwards.com/blog/drawbackwards-design-thinking-process/). If a UX writer has a very difficult time explaining or capturing an interaction’s purpose in a workflow, it is often a symptom of ineffective design rather than a failure on the part of the writer. 

> “Text problems often reveal design problems.” - [Nick Babich](https://uxplanet.org/16-rules-of-effective-ux-writing-2a20cf85fdbf)
> 
## UX Writing: The Key to Ascending the User Experience Success Ladder

No matter how well a digital experience or interaction is designed, it will ultimately fail without equally effective UX writing. Great UX writing is the red thread that weaves together a workflow’s various interactions and helps users understand where they are and where they are going next.

For brands, truly great UX writing can often be the difference between a comfortable experience and a truly meaningful one. Brands that execute UX writing well are often able to make the leap from ‘brand jargon’ to ‘layman’s terms’ — taking terminology that’s intrinsically interwoven with a brand and injecting it into the cultural lexicon (it’s why we don’t say “search for it” — we say “google it”).

When UX writing deftly weaves business objectives and user goals together into a seamless experience, it has fulfilled its purpose within the design thinking process. Next time you set out to craft a game-changing digital experience for your customers, don’t forget to account for the importance of UX writing.


No. 8: Writing for Meaningful Experiences

This is the fourth installment of our series on the [12 Competencies of UX Design](https://drawbackwards.com/blog/the-12-competencies-of-ux-design/).

* * *

In the late eighties, psychological researcher Dr. John Gottman set out to determine if he could discriminate happy from unhappy couples by analyzing their behavioral patterns.

In a study that would eventually be dubbed the [Love Lab](https://www.gottman.com/love-lab/), he invited couples to discuss a particularly contentious topic on camera. From there, he analyzed the recording and codified behaviors like eye rolls, sighs, and tone of voice. Then he combined this with quantitative data like heart rate, skin conductivity, and blood pressure to map stress levels.

Gottman and his team analyzed hundreds of couples over three years before finally releasing their research. By the time they completed their study, Gottman was able to predict which relationships would remain intact with 83% accuracy.

Gottman might not be in the design field, but his methodology isn’t all that different from how savvy UX professionals approach user research.

> Like Gottman, UX designers have to analyze not just what someone is saying and doing, but what they are thinking and feeling as well. This is what we at Drawbackwards call “Measuring Audience Experience Success”.

Three Elements for the Right Measurement Mix
--------------------------------------------

So how do product leaders and designers go about measuring audience experience success? It depends. There are a [number of research methods](https://www.nngroup.com/articles/which-ux-research-methods/) UX designers use to understand user experience before, during, and after the experience, and not all make sense for every situation.

More often than not, successful audience experience measurement comes down to the right combination of a few of these methods, and not all have to happen at the same time with the same audience. This is especially true if you’re dealing with a diverse audience with complex needs.

No matter which methods you use, your strategy should be guided by three critical factors:

![Three-Factors-of-Usibility-Testing@2x](//images.ctfassets.net/6ygji0ixcksy/20ZlrHLdwMWqYmQCO0UEWM/7de8685a1b4eb0da359d04e1e8d8db68/Three-Factors-of-Usibility-Testing_2x.png)

### #1. Timing and Key Interactions

Getting quality data from a specific interaction in audience research often comes down to when you ask. Ask too early, and users are more likely to shrug their shoulders than provide any meaningful feedback. Too late, and they won’t remember enough to provide any value. Perhaps worst of all is asking in the middle of an interaction, something that often undermines the success of the experience you’re trying to measure.

Generally speaking, the sweet spot is right after a key interaction. This way you don’t interrupt the experience, but a user’s thoughts and feelings about a particular interaction are still fresh in their minds.

### #2. Context and Users

Just like understanding a user’s state of mind and current situation can help guide initial design, it can also influence how a particular experience is measured. New users and established users, for example, won’t provide the same type of feedback. Rather than throwing an audience into a single testing bucket, designers need to identify what kind of insights they can get from different types of users, and how those users change over time.

Consider grouping an audience into buckets based on things like experience level, professional role, buying phase, or average web usage. This will remove tricky outliers that can throw off your findings, and help you hone in on patterns that really matter.

### #3. Adaptivity and Fatigue

Nobody likes getting asked the same questions over and over again. Of course, sometimes getting quality data requires asking the same users for feedback multiple times over the course of a given period or time or within a specific workflow. Simply changing the way questions are phrased can be a great way to fight research fatigue. The same goes for developing new questions based on users’ new needs.

Some companies do a great job of balancing timing, context, and adaptivity in their audience measurement strategy. Cloud-based productivity tool Asana, for example, has a [robust user research strategy](https://asana.com/research/faq) that accounts for all three of these factors in equal measure.

Before Asana users are included in their research, they must first fill out an extensive form that covers everything from how much they use Asana to which industry they work in (context). From there, users are contacted to participate in either an in-person test or one that takes place over the phone, depending on their preference (adaptivity). Users that do participate in these tests take part in a carefully moderated study that gauges their experience in real-time (timing).

Not every company has the resources to conduct such involved audience research, but even very simple methods can be enormously successful when they account for these three factors.

The Importance of Audience Experience
-------------------------------------

When Gottman created his relationship study, his goal was to determine how current behavior patterns would dictate future decisions. This is no different than the goal of measuring audience research. For Gottman, the goal was determining whether or not a couple would split — but for designers, it’s whether a user will continue to use a product or service.

Just like some couples Gottman studied, digital audiences today have plenty of options — and are constantly evaluating these options to determine which they prefer. Since digital audiences sometimes have thousands of options to choose from, the quality of their experience is a major deciding factor in which option they select.

> Consequently, product leaders and designers need a way to determine how their experience rates against competing experiences and where they need to improve in order to win over their audience — and that’s not always easy when you’re dealing with complex human emotions.

To do this, the team at Drawbackwards uses the [Experience Success Ladder](https://drawbackwards.com/blog/ux-design-success-ladder-for-meaningful-product-design/), which codifies levels of user experience into five distinct “rungs”, each building on the one below it. The higher an experience goes on the ladder, the more likely users are to develop loyalty and engagement with it.

![The Drawbackwards Experience Success Ladder](//images.ctfassets.net/6ygji0ixcksy/1xkWmdemI4akeCqUC2cCCs/585d7ae014b3b293ef90034b8318358a/The-Drawbackwards-Experience-Success-Ladder.png)

### Functional

Functional experiences fulfill technical specifications but don’t include much in the way of clear labels, logical order or placement of buttons or user-friendliness. Settling for an experience that is merely “functional” is a great way to alienate the majority of human audiences looking to move through a workflow and achieve something easily. It’s also where human error is a frequent result.

### Usable

Usable experiences are different from functional experiences because a user can typically complete a task correctly with some work. “Usable” and “usability” is too low of a bar in the UX discipline today, yet many teams stop here. Merely usable experiences still make people think before acting and often leave a person searching for the right way to complete a task. This level still results in wasted interaction time, especially for new users.

### Comfortable

When an experience moves from usable to comfortable, that means it is inherently more intuitive for a user. They won’t need to dig around to find what they need, and are able to move through a workflow with less friction — but experiences that are merely comfortable may not leave a lasting impression.

### Delightful

Move one rung up to delightful, and you are beginning to leave users feeling noticeably happy rather than just satisfied. Surprises appear that elevate and compliment the core experience in unexpected and fulfilling ways. Users will enjoy the experience and might prefer to use it unless something truly meaningful comes around.

### Meaningful

Meaningful experiences are those that users are likely to say they “can’t live without”. These are the product moments that lead people to tell their friends about what they are missing out on. Savvy product managers and UX designers aspire to create meaningful experiences by understanding their audience’s deeper emotions, needs, wants. They also know how to use time, space and context to deliver information, tools, and insights in a way that alters how people think and act in their world.

Codifying Qualitative Data
--------------------------

Meaningful experiences don’t happen on accident. They require a deep understanding of users’ emotions, needs, and wants — all of which can’t be captured with quantitative data alone. The trick is understanding how you can create meaning from qualitative data, and that comes down to repetition. If you analyze enough of qualitative data, patterns will start to emerge, and these patterns can tell you a lot about how and why users are behaving (or not behaving) in a particular way.

As Drawbackwards, we created a tool called [UX Rings](https://uxrings.com/), part of an overall assessment process,  that uses patterns and impressions in user feedback to “grade” particular experiences based on the five rungs of the Experience Success Ladder. This helps designers make sense of complex qualitative data in a format they can actually understand and use. Plus, it helps them understand what changes they need to make in order to move from merely comfortable to meaningful.

![UX Rings Score for Slack](//images.ctfassets.net/6ygji0ixcksy/3E22DJyw0oKQECkAGeaqgs/1b72a5806f22f814af37a61f499a2bb2/UX-Rings-Score-for-Slack.jpg)

Slack’s rating based on UX Rings’ report.

Creating Meaningful Experiences
-------------------------------

Creating meaningful experiences comes down to understanding and designing for human emotions, wants, and needs. Doing so means taking enough time, looking at the right metrics and using the right tools to understand exactly what an audience is telling you.

> Though the process takes considerable time and energy, neglecting to measure audience experience success is a one-way ticket to mediocrity or failure.

Smart UX designers will always recognize the importance of knowing what their audience thinks and feels, and will allow those insights to guide their entire design approach.

No. 4: Measuring Audience Experience Success

The 12 Competencies of UX Design

This is the fifth installment of our series on the [12 Competencies of UX Design](https://drawbackwards.com/blog/the-12-competencies-of-ux-design/).

* * *

Imagine you’re checking your email one morning and find an email from your bank notifying you about an update to your account. The email says you can find information about the update in your notification center. You click the ‘login’ button in the email, which opens your bank app and prompts you to sign in.

After entering your username and password, you’re taken to the app’s home screen… and you’re stuck. You think “where is the notification center?” and “what am I supposed to do next?” You exit your app and go back to the email, only to discover that there are no instructions. You spend a few more minutes clicking around the app before giving up and calling the bank’s customer service hotline instead.

If you’ve ever had an experience similar to this one, you already understand the importance of reducing friction by improving the context, structure and flow — you just don’t know you do. Don’t believe us? We can prove it.

Let’s break it down...

### Context

Seasoned UX designers recognize the importance of where a user is coming from, and where they’re going. This is part of “context”, and it helps designers consider what a user is thinking, feeling, and doing (along with many other things) at the time of an interaction.

In the banking app scenario, the initial email provided just a little bit of context by telling you that you had a notification regarding your account. Of course, when you clicked the button and logged into the app, that context didn’t follow through. It just dropped you on the app’s home screen with no regard to why you were there. Whoever designed that interaction didn’t think about where you were coming from, and where you needed to go next.

### Structure

Structure is just another way to say “information architecture”, and acts a lot like physical architecture. International airports, for example, use graphical signage and repeating patterns to help people easily go from check-in, to security, to their gate. Experienced UX designers do the same thing in digital formats — they organize things in a way that helps users find what they need easily in a logical and orderly system.

In the previous scenario, the banking app’s structure was poor. How do we know? Because once you logged in, you had no idea how to accomplish the task you set out to do. You didn’t know where to find the notification center because there was no digital “signage” or discernable patterns to help you.

### Flow

Flow is just what it sounds like: it’s the progression of one small interaction to another in order to complete a particular task (the “this, then this, then that”). Depending on how well an experience is designed, that progression can either be smooth and effortless, or confusing and frustrating.

In the banking app scenario, the “flow” was almost non-existent because there was no clear path from one step to the next. After logging in, it wasn’t clear which button or action would take you to where you needed to go.

### Friction

So what do these things have to do with user experience? Simple: __they all cause friction__.

Friction is essentially the moment when a user feels confused, uncertain, frustrated, or lost. Anyone who has ever had to wait in line at the MVD to renew their license or make a claim on their car insurance knows exactly what friction feels like.

Alternatively, user experiences with less friction elicit feelings of accomplishment, relaxation, and even delight. They also leave users feeling valued and understood as an individual rather than just another customer.

The banking scenario is also a perfect example of an experience riddled with user friction, which leaves a user feeling ignored, devalued, and invisible. It’s all because of lack of context, coherent structure, and a discernible flow.

### So now that we know what not to do when it comes to context, structure, and flow, let’s look at what our banking app scenario should have looked like…

You open an email from your bank that says there’s been a change to your account. You click a button within the email that says “read the notification”, which takes you to your banking app. You log in, and the app takes you straight to your notification center.

You read the notification and realize that you missed a payment — but right within the notification is a button that says “make payment”. You click it, and it guides you through the process of transferring money from your bank account to your credit card balance.

The entire interaction is complete in a matter of minutes — and rather than feeling frustrated and confused, you feel accomplished, valued, and at ease knowing you have one less thing to worry about.

## Why So Many Companies Get It Wrong — And Why It Matters

Even major brands and enterprises create unnecessary friction for their users all the time. That’s because rather than thinking about an experience through the eyes of a user, many big companies think only about their goals and objectives.

The argument is usually that in order to run a business, you need to make money… and that in order to make money, businesses need to make users do what you want them to do (rather than doing things in a way that users would prefer).

Data, however, shows us that this is not the case. According to a [recent study](https://www.forrester.com/report/The+Six+Steps+For+Justifying+Better+UX/-/E-RES117708) from Forrester Research, a well-designed user interface could raise a website’s conversion rate by up to 200%, and better UX design (re: less friction) could yield conversion rates up to 400%. Put simply, customers want to do business with companies that care about them, and one of the ways companies prove this is with great UX.

Of course, business objectives are very important — but there is a way to balance the scales between business goals and user needs. Great UX designers know how to strike this balance so that both parties get what they want and need.

## Examples of Great Context, Structure, and Flow

Now that we’ve talked a lot about what companies are doing wrong, let’s look at a few companies that are doing things right.

### Oscar

Oscar is a health insurance company whose mobile app simplifies the most frustrating tasks associated with health insurance and doctor’s visits. Oscar reduces friction by making context, structure, and flow central to their app’s design.

![find doctor Oscar app](//images.ctfassets.net/6ygji0ixcksy/2UlM7MetscSSqqQOOm6y4K/1f589e9da492d3d4f2ef1d3f11a47c6c/find_doctor_Oscar_app.png)

First, the Oscar app provides __context__ by using your location to tailor your experience. If you are in New York, for example, and need to find a doctor nearby, the app automatically adjusts its physician directory based on your phone’s location.

![oscar app homescreen](//images.ctfassets.net/6ygji0ixcksy/1f5aoNAFBMOe8y6W6G0uea/35721073ac2760bb15fd7f8ecd2b1d57/oscar_app_homescreen.jpeg)

Second, Oscar’s app has thoughtful __structure__ based on what users need. By using very simple text and icons of the most popular tasks right on the app’s homescreen, the app makes it easier for users to find what they need quickly.

Third, Oscar creates an intuitive and near-frictionless user __flow__ by using easy to understand language and navigation throughout. Rather than using phrases like “physician’s directory”, the app uses language that speaks directly to whatever task a user is trying to accomplish — like “find a doctor”.

#### The Result:

After launching in 2012, the Oscar app now has over 250,000 users and partners with 3,500 doctors across the country. Oscar testimonials say things like:

*“You can look up a doctor on the app as opposed to navigating a ridiculous website and getting all these doctors not even near you.”*

*“The difference with Oscar is just how easy everything is. Health insurance can be so confusing and stressful and Oscar just takes it all away.”*

### Canva

Canva is a free, cloud-based design platform that helps non-designers create clean marketing and social media imagery quickly. Canva makes great design accessible to the lay user by leveraging context, structure, and flow.

![Canva screen](//images.ctfassets.net/6ygji0ixcksy/4owoXHzD0AK8KSSiUCUmC6/d96e4aa1a07432f4cd08a4ef286ca557/Canva_screen.jpeg)

First, Canva provides great __context__ by saving a user’s prior work right on the home screen. Plus, since Canva knows its core users aren’t designers, it provides templates so that a user can simply adapt rather than starting from scratch.

Second, Canva has great __structure__ because it organizes the most common needs alongside descriptive icons right on the navigation pane. From there, users can search within categories to find exactly what they’re looking for.

Third, Canva’s user __flow__ is crisp and simple because it uses simple interaction design to guide a user through the platform. When a user clicks on an element within a design, for instance, options not available for that element are greyed out while options that are available become dark and bold.

#### The Result:

Canva is now a favorite tool for freelancers, small business owners, and marketers that need to create better designs for less. User testimonials say things like:

*“Canva for work is perfect. It gives us so much more autonomy and allows [my team] to be more nimble.”*

*“We need tools that are easy and quick to use. Canva helps me product print-ready, quality images in a way that’s both time-efficient and simple.”*

## The Core UX Tenets for Reducing Friction

Reducing friction with context, structure, and flow can be enormously lucrative — but there’s no one way to do it right. That’s why UX designers who are great at establishing context, structure, and flow are also the designers with a knack for seeing things from the perspective of the user.

That said, there are a few core tenets for reducing friction — and all of them guide our team at Drawbackwards when designing new experiences or improving established ones.

### Stay flexible, my friends.

Every designer worth their salt will understand the importance of a style guide. They keep things consistent and clean, and help guide teams of designers and developers stay within brand guidelines. That said, plenty of designers are victims of their own rigidity, and struggle to design experiences that are adaptable to user needs and business objectives. One thing is for sure…

>Ruthless consistency will not allow context, structure, and flow to occur.

Great user experience design means striking a balance between consistency and flexibility that allows designers to design for a user needs within a particular moment.

### Design at the intersection of user needs and business objectives.

In order to design experiences that feel friction-free and intuitive — but still serve a business purpose — it’s essential to consider both user needs and business objectives when making design choices. Too much of either will create a lopsided experience that doesn’t live up to its vision.

At Drawbackwards, we achieve this with a “service blueprint”. This visual map shows how a business can fulfill user needs while still staying true to its business objectives throughout a user flow. This helps guide design by identifying what each moment in an interaction needs to accomplish from both a user and business perspective.

### Don’t mistake stacks of wireframes and diagrams for real strategy.

Currently, the majority of “UX designers” we encounter spend about 90% of their time creating wireframes, diagrams, and prototypes… and about 10% of that time thinking about what a user or business might want or need. The wireframes, sitemaps, and prototypes are all just tools great designers use to visualize what user needs and business objectives look like on paper and how context, structure and flow can play a role in what we call “experience success”.

The sign of a great UX designer is that they’ll spend a lot more time getting to know user needs and business objectives than they will creating wireframes and diagrams. Research, strategy and conversations are what take up the bulk of a UX designer’s time because they are a critical step in defining what success looks like from all sides. 

As Einstein once said, “if I only had one hour to solve a problem, I would spend 55 minutes defining the problem and the remaining 5 minutes solving it routinely.” Preach it, Albert.

## Mission: Frictionless

Great user experience design is iterative — and it’s almost never done. It’s almost impossible to create a perfect user flow the first time around, and it’s a waste of time to try to get everything absolutely perfect before letting users and business leaders weigh in.

> In experience design, the role of a designer is to chip away at user friction by measuring audience experience success, making iterative improvements, and repeating that process toward higher and higher levels of customer experience success.

By employing this iterative approach to context, structure, and flow within an experience, brands can finally make the leap from merely functional, useful products and services to truly meaningful ones.

No. 5: Reducing Friction with Context, Structure, and Flow

This is the ninth installment of our series on the [12 Competencies of UX Design](https://drawbackwards.com/blog/the-12-competencies-of-ux-design/).

* * *

In 2018, real estate portal Homes.com released [results from a survey](https://www.housingwire.com/articles/46384-americans-say-buying-a-home-is-most-stressful-event-in-modern-life) about the purchasing preferences and experiences of 2,000 American homeowners. Of those homeowners, a whopping 40% agreed that purchasing a home is the single most stressful event in modern life, with four out of five citing a “lack of confidence” when purchasing their home.

Buying a house is a complicated and confusing process even for the savviest consumers, so it comes as no surprise that nearly [90% of home buyers](https://www.housingwire.com/articles/47376-more-americans-are-using-real-estate-agents-than-ever-before) (including millennials) seek the help of a real estate agent to assist them with their purchase. Even in the advent of technology, consumers want help making decisions and navigating the steps of a major investment — especially if the process is particularly complex. 

Why? Because while online shopping is convenient, there is still value in getting help from an expert if and when you need it. That’s why [meaningful digital experiences](https://drawbackwards.com/blog/ux-design-success-ladder-for-meaningful-product-design/) have more than just beautiful design and [concise UX writing](https://drawbackwards.com/blog/what-is-ux-writing-meaningful-experiences/): They’re intelligent, too.

## Intelligence — The Secret Ingredient of Great UX

What makes a digital experience intelligent? The hallmark of intelligent UX is the concept of assistance — the idea that a digital experience can facilitate a user accomplishing a task by offering suggestions and guidance at the very moment a user needs it. Devices like smart speakers and AI-enabled virtual assistants are perfect examples of this type of guidance.

When done right, intelligence in UX instills confidence, similar to how a great customer service representative or salesperson helps someone complete a task or purchase, and makes digital experiences feel more personal and engaging. To do so, systems use data to determine what a user might need at a particular point in time. That data might include:

- Purchasing history
- Location
- Age
- Interests
- Income level

That said, even the most advanced technology can’t yet anticipate the needs of a customer without some human help (not even Siri or Alexa). It’s the role of designers, strategists and developers to create a system that knows how and when to use particular data — and to determine how this translates to the interface with which an end user interacts.

Product teams interested in applying data and technology in an intelligent, helpful experience look to answer questions like:

- How might we elevate a user’s experience based on their context (their location, environment, feelings, etc.)?

- How might we give people the right information, in the right moment? What suggestions for action will we provide while users are interacting with or without a screen?

- Of all the ways we might add assistance and intelligence, which ones align with business strategy and user needs best?

By answering these questions as part of the [UX design thinking process](https://drawbackwards.com/blog/drawbackwards-design-thinking-process/), UX designers can help their companies and teams create the tools and technology that align with their business goals and user needs — or more simply, [their vision](https://drawbackwards.com/blog/creating-vision-desired-outcome-ux-design-competency-2/).

## Examples of Great Assistance and Intelligence

Most of us interact with intelligent technology every day, but we may not realize it. That’s because the best examples of assistance in UX are often so seamless, they feel interwoven with the design or conversation itself. 

Let’s take a look at a few examples...

### Turbo Tax

Doing taxes is the bane of every American’s existence every April, but the process of completing complicated financial information is made a lot easier because of TurboTax. What makes TurboTax such a valuable tool for so many people? It uses intelligence to create “assisted moments” that feel intuitive and exciting.

Before someone even registers with TurboTax, they are asked to describe themselves with simple, easy-to-understand descriptions:

![turbotax1](//images.ctfassets.net/6ygji0ixcksy/5NaZz9J4fGfoduA6CHVAqp/0d560e5f9de26c11e87456e201083068/turbotax1.gif)
*Source: [Appcues.com](https://www.appcues.com/blog/how-turbotax-makes-a-dreadful-user-experience-a-delightful-one)*

This information is later used to populate fields before they even begin filing their taxes:

![turbotax2](//images.ctfassets.net/6ygji0ixcksy/55OTTNXJGED6VqzfhTG3BC/da175fdd6b9e5933dc15d02819829440/turbotax2.png)
*Source: [Appcues.com](https://www.appcues.com/blog/how-turbotax-makes-a-dreadful-user-experience-a-delightful-one)*

Right off the bat, the platform feels more personal and relevant, and makes the otherwise frustrating process of filing taxes easier.

### Apple

If you have two-factor authentication set up on any of your digital accounts, you’re familiar with the concept of a login verification code. For many years, users were forced to exit out of their app, open a text message, copy a numerical code and reopen the original app just to log in. 

So when Apple released iOS 12, they added a new feature that would allow iPhone owners to auto-fill a code received as a text message without leaving their original app, like this:

![Apple1](//images.ctfassets.net/6ygji0ixcksy/7qhI0jpt0ygneKloiKCf4P/1fb9794253f1dce78dba190de1350c3a/Apple1.png)
*Source: [Tidbits.com](https://tidbits.com/2018/10/04/sms-text-message-login-codes-autofill-in-ios-12-and-mojave-but-remain-insecure/)*

While this assisted moment might seem insignificant, those few seconds can turn a frustrating process into a delightful one. Just consider how this feature might make signing in to pay your credit card bill a little less painful.

### Walgreens

Getting prescriptions refilled is a hassle that few of us feel we have time for, especially if it requires a visit to our pharmacy or doctor. In an effort to keep customers coming back, Walgreens decided to make refilling a prescription with their pharmacy as easy as replying to a text message.

![Walgreens1](//images.ctfassets.net/6ygji0ixcksy/1wJ1VOk3JSEWZ7PDN4jSFj/debd30d27447b66f13141ef5ab934d9d/Walgreens1.jpg)

Walgreen customers are not only be reminded that it’s time for a refill, they can also take care of it within seconds. Unsurprisingly, the service was a hit — [over 2 million](https://www.retaildive.com/ex/mobilecommercedaily/walgreens-builds-on-sms-success-adds-prescription-refill-alerts) of the pharmacy’s customers now refill their prescriptions this way.

## Infusing Intelligence in UX

In a perfect world, UX designers play a central role in creating the types of technology that are used in a business. Beyond cost and functionality, UX designers and strategists can ensure that technology is used in a way that’s relevant and valuable to an end user. They can also help align technology with user needs and business objectives.

That said, most UX professionals or teams inherit technology, and therefore must adapt technical functionality to user needs through the use of custom plug-ins or interfaces. Even then, the limitations of this approach makes it hard to move from delightful to meaningful on the [experience success ladder](https://drawbackwards.com/blog/ux-design-success-ladder-for-meaningful-product-design/).

The secret to creating meaningful experiences in the digital age is to map technology onto user needs, not the other way around. This is why infusing intelligence into experience design is such a critical competency for UX professionals and teams. 

UX professionals can help their companies boost ROI in two ways: By selecting or creating technology that will allow for intelligent assistance, and by making a digital experience more intuitive, delightful and meaningful to customers. As the line between customer service and digital user experience continues to blur, smart business leaders already understand the critical role UX professionals play in these crucial decisions.



No. 9: Infusing Assistance and Intelligence

This is the third installment of our series on the [12 Competencies of UX Design](https://drawbackwards.com/blog/the-12-competencies-of-ux-design/).

* * *

Think about the last time you had a seamless and enjoyable experience on a website or app. What did it feel like? How well did it help you accomplish a task?

Now think about the last awful experience you had while interacting with a digital product. What made it so painful and frustrating?

It’s safe to say that those two experiences were both visually appealing and generally nice to look at. Once you got beyond the flashy visuals, however, things changed.

The designers behind the awful experience probably didn’t envision it being awful. They wanted it to be easy to use as well as nice to look at. But somewhere between initial ideation and the final product, something went awry.

What did those designers miss along the way? It’s simple: they didn’t fully understand what users wanted, needed, and expected. They didn’t understand their audience.

The Importance of Research
--------------------------

There’s a saying among consultants and agencies: “You can’t read the label when you’re inside the jar.” Most of us within the design world are too close to the things we build to really understand what motivates users to use, or not use, our product or service.

> Our assumptions about what users want and need often don’t match up with reality.

That’s why smart UX designers put research and empathy at the core of their design process. They understand that in order to design a product that serves both user and business needs, they first have to understand what those needs are — not from their own perspective, but from the perspective of the target audience.

Research helps bridge the gap between what a business wants and needs, and what their customers want and need. It keeps designers honest about how their decisions throughout the design process promote usability as well as business objectives. All in all, research is a key ingredient to charting a path to your desired outcome.

**When conducting research, we usually ask these types of questions:**

*   What’s the real problem you’re trying to solve?
*   What are your business objectives, and how will solving this problem help achieve those objectives?
*   What are the strengths and weaknesses of your current solution?
*   What constraints are you working around, such as timeline, budget, and leadership support?
*   Who is your current target audience and ideal audience? What do users in different segments of your audience have in common?
*   What are their attitudes about your product/service category in general? What are they looking for?

Research operates like a system of checks and balances for our gut instinct. Having great research helps designers successfully balance both user expectations and business objectives at every stage of the design process.

The Role of User Research in Building User Empathy
--------------------------------------------------

When we start to conduct user research specifically, our natural inclination is to start with quantitative data — the numbers. Quantitative user research helps us recognize where there might be an issue in a user’s workflow and identify possible points of friction.

> In order to truly reduce friction for a user, however, we have to look at the story behind the data. What are the numbers trying to tell us?

Quantitative data points like click rate, page views, and traffic are all helpful in understanding a user’s experience after the fact — but they are just indicators. In the context of reducing user friction, these data simply tell us where to look.

By combining quantitative user data with qualitative user data, we start to get a much clearer picture of the story behind the numbers. This understanding of our audience on a deeper, more holistic level is what we call user empathy.

User empathy doesn’t always come naturally, which is why a critical part of our design process at Drawbackwards is conducting “empathy exercises”. These exercises help us and our clients get a clearer picture of what an end user might be thinking, feeling, and doing at a particular point in a workflow. Let’s take a look at some of the most effective types of empathy exercises.

### Empathy Maps

[![Empathy Map](//images.ctfassets.net/6ygji0ixcksy/4TMU6wfwyQGy88kcMS2Yu0/0c497b2ee2565d75ddca43279adb3ea6/Empahy-Map-1.png)](http://design.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Empahy-Map-1.png)

Empathy maps are a great way to illustrate a user’s senses beyond just what they are thinking and doing. They help paint a more holistic picture of the target user as a person, and can help designers recognize the overall context of their state of mind.

### Field Studies

A field study immerses designers in the life of a typical user by including them in their day. This is a great way to observe products “in the wild” and a means for understanding how external factors might influence a user’s decisions and motivations.

### Customer Journey Maps

[![Customer Journey Map](//images.ctfassets.net/6ygji0ixcksy/SCo2A7kvsGyeAWKCOiCYm/501323d1fb991bb6c2d1c1eb9d2dc9be/Sample-Customer-Journey-Map.png)](http://design.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Sample-Customer-Journey-Map.png)

Source: [MappingExperiences.com](http://mappingexperiences.com)

Customer journey maps are a great way to visualize an end user’s changing emotions, pain points, and questions throughout a process or workflow. They are helpful when trying to understand where there may be friction and frustration. Customer journey maps also help designers recognize opportunities for improvement.

### Customer and Stakeholder Interviews

Interviews are probably the easiest way to learn not just what your customers do, but why they do it. Even if you don’t have direct access to customers, customer-facing teams like Sales and Support can often provide anecdotes to help ground design assumptions in reality. Interviews conducted in real time (either over the phone or in-person) naturally provide more depth and context than a traditional written survey.

Relevance and Continuous Research
---------------------------------

In a letter to a fan, UP and Monsters Inc. director Pete Docter shined a light on what makes Pixar films consistently great. He said, “It takes a lot of work (and rework, and rework and rework) to get \[a film\] right. And even then quite often we’re not 100% pleased. As John Lasseter likes to say, our films don’t get finished, they just get released.”

The same goes for great UX design, since both user and business expectations, needs, and wants are constantly changing and adapting. What your audience prefers today might be different tomorrow. Your competitors are continuously changing the way they serve their target customers’ needs, which influences what users expect (and what you need to deliver).

For example, consider the radical changes the iPhone has undergone since the release of Apple’s inaugural smartphone in 2010. The company has released 16 new models in just eight years, along with regular iOS updates between hardware releases. Meanwhile, dozens of competitors began releasing their own smartphones, upping the ante for Apple designers.

Despite the onslaught of competition, Apple remains the gold standard for smartphones and other devices because they recognize the importance of consistent research and innovation. In order to stay relevant in the face of rapidly changing user demands, UX designers and businesses alike need to take a page out of Apple’s book and put research and empathy at the core of their strategy.

The Bottom Line
---------------

Delivering exceptional UX design begins and ends with understanding your audience — not just at the beginning of a project, but at every stage of the design process. Without it, you won’t know what steps you need to take to ultimately achieve your vision.

> Research and empathy is what will keep you honest and focused on both user needs and business goals throughout the design process.

A deep understanding of what matters most to your audience is the key to delivering consistently valuable experiences, and what will ultimately help you stay relevant now and in the future.

No. 3: Understanding Your Audience Through Empathy and Research

This is the sixth installment of our series on the [12 Competencies of UX Design](https://drawbackwards.com/blog/the-12-competencies-of-ux-design/).

* * *

Think back to your childhood (or, depending on your age, the last 80s movie you’ve watched) and visualize your favorite arcade game. Imagine yourself standing in front of it, with a stack of quarters in hand. 

Now you put a quarter in the slot. A cheerful flash of lights, a chirpy jingle, and a brightly-colored “start” screen responds. That quarter drop means you’re in the game!

Even without the chirpy jingle and flashing lights, the “start” screen probably would have been enough to signal you to start playing — but it wouldn’t have felt the same. Something about the machine interacting with your input in a delightful, stimulating way made the experience that much better.

The same principle applies for virtually any digital product or experience. Just like an arcade game, a quality digital experience not only responds to the actions of a user (what we call feedback), but also leverages that feedback to help users achieve their goals in the best (and most delightful) way possible. 

We call this interaction design, and it’s a critical element in user experience.

# The Five Principles of Great Interaction Design

In our last post about [the importance of context, structure, and flow](https://drawbackwards.com/blog/reducing-friction-context-structure-flow-UX-competency-5 "Context, Structure, and Flow"), we discussed how successfully leveraging those elements ultimately reduces user friction. Interaction design similarly plays an enormous role in reducing friction, since it is the “language” and "feeling" that ties a workflow together.

The best way to understand interaction design is to see it done well. Let’s look at the five principles of successful interaction design — using the Drawbackwards website as an example:

## Great interaction design helps users achieve their goals

Ultimately, interaction design helps a user achieve a goal. It communicates to a user when they interact giving feedback, advancing them from where they’ve come from, and starts taking them where they need to go next.

On the Drawbackwards site, one goal a user may have is to find out how Drawbackwards improves user experience and then decide if we’re the right team to help them do it. 

On our homepage, we start by saying the end state of what they would want to achieve by showing the words “dissolving complexity, creating simplicity”.

Once we have established where we are going, we prompt them to take the next step in achieving that goal. "Let's Begin"

![Lets-Begin](//images.ctfassets.net/6ygji0ixcksy/2Wp5h1jcJwbdxVpOTGLMLF/be3dec656cf1e2bf3b3d68ba3397958f/Lets-Begin.gif)

We continue this process of moving them through the site, introducing the Drawbackwards approach. At the end of that intitial content, the interface provides interactive elements at the bottom of the page, like this...

![Approach](//images.ctfassets.net/6ygji0ixcksy/OH7A9s7XV46i9eS4PxJuz/db029458fe2b2a9f4805d00bfd7a738d/Approach.png)

By assisting users through the site with elements like wayfinding copy on buttons, arrows, and light hover effects, they are able to interact and move toward their next goal or draw their next conclusion more easily and in a way that feels comfortable and intuitive.

## Great interaction design helps users to achieve their goals in a variety of ways.

Every user is different, which means their goals (and even their preferred method for achieving those goals) are diverse. Great interaction design not only takes these diverse methods and goals into account, but creates flexibility so that different users can achieve their unique goals in the best way possible. 

__How? Let’s take another look at our example…__

![Approach](//images.ctfassets.net/6ygji0ixcksy/17U37IOf90tPbwPVuVnlo7/ab84e1b6955a567775ac06117ec2f0ce/Approach.png)

When a user reaches the end of a page of content, they may feel that they have enough information to contact Drawbackwards (so we give them a button to do so). On the other hand, some users will want to learn more before contacting us, so we’ve created a route for that, too — and signified it with an arrow and text that changes color when hovered over.

These elements might seem small, but they mean a lot to a user, easing and guiding them from their state of mind. 

> By adapting interaction design to allow users to achieve their goal, in the way they’d prefer, we help a user to feel empowered and understood rather than confused or overlooked.

## Great interaction design helps a user know what to do next.

Since the purpose of interaction design is to allow a user achieve their goal by helping them navigate in a workflow, one of its most important functions is to communicate next steps in a way that a user will understand. 

__Let’s take a look at a very specific portion of the Drawbackwards website — our section on our Design Thinking approach — to see how it’s done.__

![Process](//images.ctfassets.net/6ygji0ixcksy/4bvobTtovXxfLfP1vB0XTJ/756ba569617b24e8bd781083503def2b/Process.gif)

In this section of the site we want users to be able to:

1. Easily see how each step in our Design Thinking process builds on the previous step; and,

2. Freely explore and engage with each step at their own pace and in the order they prefer.

In order to communicate this, we use both an arrow to visually signify “next”, while also underlining the current step they are reading in a sequenced menu below it. 

This helps a user visualize the entire Design Thinking process end-to-end in a line, while also giving them the freedom to read details about each step in the order they prefer. The arrows guide them along a particular path, while the linear menu helps them hop around freely without getting lost or confused.

## Great interaction design takes constraints and context into account.

One of the hallmarks of great interaction design is its ability to deliver clarity and simplicity within a user’s constraints. 

These constraints can be anything from their state of mind (“I’m stressed about my card being declined, so I need to check my account balance quickly”) to their device (“I hope I can check into my flight on my phone while taking a Lyft to the airport”).

Thinking through how and why a user might be feeling, thinking, or doing something while moving through their life helps interaction designers create experiences that fit within those constraints.

__As an example, let’s take a look at the difference between the Drawbackwards desktop site and the mobile site:__

![Desktop v Mobile](//images.ctfassets.net/6ygji0ixcksy/5NdR4tbgzuLC8Efgop3dxb/f079aef82da574806a94c5f09944b22f/Desktop_v_Mobile.png)

Notice anything?

The location of the main navigation on the desktop homepage is at the top, where it has the best visibility and usability for a desktop user. Look at the mobile version, and see that menu is located at the bottom — where a mobile user’s thumbs can reach and activate it. 

![mobile-menu-opening](//images.ctfassets.net/6ygji0ixcksy/7v0uPjM4zeFCmGMn4gss3C/1be8e2ecf2abc49c66d42af833187919/mobile-menu-opening.gif)

We do this because users on a mobile phone will have different constraints than a user on a desktop computer. We adapt the interaction design of the mobile version to better suit the constraints of this type of user. Additionally, we adapt the interaction and content consuption workflow. On desktop, a white button asks the user to begin a story while a menu is expposed above. On mobile, a white button activates a mobie menu that allows the user to go into the story through "Approach" or jump to any other menu content easily.

## Great interaction design allows users to easily learn new processes.

No matter how well a workflow or experience is designed, there is always a learning curve for first-time users. Ideally, the process of moving through a particular workflow or experience gets easier over time. In order to help users learn new processes, great interaction design usually strikes a careful balance between established UI patterns and new elements.

__As an example, let’s take another look at our Drawbackwards mobile site menu:__

![Mobile-Menu](//images.ctfassets.net/6ygji0ixcksy/71bIltySXSItdYGC0C0oBg/9c068935e726485ee379e0fbc9d2b027/Mobile-Menu.PNG)

Take a look at the icons in the bottom left corner. What do those icons mean? 

Our experience with user research shows that almost anyone who uses a smart phone could easily identify the “call” and “email” icons and to a lesser degree the “location” pin icon even though there are no words to indicate it. That’s because we leveraged very recognizable icons on our mobile menu that match icons used on most mobile interfaces.

Simply put, we use visual language that users already recognize to make it easier for them to learn how to achieve their goal easily.

# The Art (and Science) of Interaction Design

Interaction design is a discipline that is equal parts a science and an art. While much of what works in interaction design is influenced by data and testing, truly great interaction design demands a high level of creativity, storytelling and emotional intelligence.

> Good interaction designers will know how to move an interaction forward by making it clear and engaging, great ones know where to add delight and meaning without disrupting the task at heand. 

Great interaction work is influenced by a certain level of intuition, empathy and creative boldness that unlocks delight and meaning in the interaction. That includes things like adding a piece of content that lightly assists or reassures the user at the moment of interaction, or taking a step out of a process that isn't needed or can be presented later after the core interaction is complete.

This is why the art of interaction design is such a critical competency in user experience. Without a certain level of artistry, experiences would never ascend to the [top rung of the experience success ladder](https://drawbackwards.com/blog/ux-design-success-ladder-for-meaningful-product-design "User Experience Success Ladder"). Thus, the art of interaction design is a key component to delivering the meaningful experiences that modern consumers crave, show fierce loyalty to and send to their friends.



No. 6: The Art of Interaction Design

*This is the eleventh installment of our series on the [12 Competencies of UX Design](https://drawbackwards.com/blog/the-12-competencies-of-ux-design/).*

How long do you think it would take a construction crew to build a barn from the ground up? A few weeks? Maybe even a month? Now imagine this construction crew doesn’t have any machinery, vehicles or even electricity at their disposal — only ropes, small tools and their own two hands. 

This is exactly what Amish and Mennonite communities in the U.S. and Canada have been doing since the 18th century. Even without the help of modern technology, these communities are able to construct an entire barn in [as little as 10 hours](https://thekidshouldseethis.com/post/amish-barn-raising-building-a-barn-in-one-day) in what is referred to as a “barn raising.” They do it by combining the efforts of an entire community in a feat in both engineering and teamwork. 

Not only does this demonstrate how collaboration can help teams achieve extraordinary things, it also showcases how a team’s planning and preparation plays a role in the success of a project. That’s because Amish and Mennonite communities spend the weeks before a barn raising gathering supplies, assigning duties and establishing a clear plan of action so that the day of the construction itself goes off without a hitch.

In many ways, the most effective UX teams have a lot in common with these communities. They understand that when it comes to creative success, mere teamwork isn’t enough. What really matters is how they work together — and how __collaborating and critiquing for growth__ plays a crucial role in user experience success.

## The Art of Collaboration
Prior to a barn raising, community members clearly establish what role each individual will play during construction based on experience and expertise. Though each person contributes differently, everyone understands how labor is divided and individual efforts contribute to a shared goal.

The most effective user experience teams are organized in much the same way. While people with a background in visual design may guide aesthetics, developers may focus more on the technical functionality of an experience. What all team members share, however, is a vision of success. Individual team members leverage their unique skill set to help the team succeed.

__This means asking questions like:__

- Why work together instead of independently?
- How do you collaborate throughout the design process?
- How often do you give and receive feedback on work?
- How can you make the solution even better?
- What can you learn from this and apply to future designs?

Having teams communicating closely, discussing solutions as a team, and working together incrementally helps collaboration flourish. To do this well, individuals and teams must be in the collaboration sweet spot, here:
![June Internal Image Chart@2x](//images.ctfassets.net/6ygji0ixcksy/7e2HBn4biT6GIJYvipcNom/1ece2b56f35482b1003a2da477b66ef9/June_Internal_Image_Chart_2x.png)

### Patient
UX design — especially at the enterprise level — is complex and iterative. It requires many small but meaningful improvements over a long period of time rather than trying to make something “perfect” the first time around. 

Even in the best of circumstances, it’s easy for individuals to get impatient and want to make more sweeping changes or accept the first best guess to get to the finish line faster. Of course, experienced UX professionals know that the only constant in user experience is change — and that “success” today may look nothing like it will in just a few months’ time. Testing and iteration with users turns your hypothesis into a solution. This is why patience with a project, with coworkers and with the design process is crucial for any UX team.

### Pragmatic
Most professionals have heard the term “minimum viable product” before. At Drawbackwards, we say [Minimum Valuable Product](https://drawbackwards.com/blog/the-wrong-and-right-way-to-build-an-mvp/), where the fewest features necessary, paired with a high-degree of quality and value to solve the primary problem for your primary market is delivered.

Creating a minimum valuable product is a different lens for creating a viable product, since it requires everyone on a UX team to share an understanding of what makes an experience valuable in the first place. This requires deep empathy among team members — developers will understand what matters to designers and users, while designers will know which technical trade-offs developers feel are crucial to deliver the product where the user still feels the value.

This is why pragmatism is such a crucial quality for UX teams. They all align behind what valuable looks like for a user, and then be willing to “kill their darlings" — their personal ideas and favorite patterns, and find a new path in order to achieve that goal.  
### Flexible
Many designers who have been in the field for a decade or more may have come from a more traditional fine arts or graphic design background. Sometimes that shows up where designers create solutions based on aesthetics or layout and print typography traditions vs. the fluid nature of the screens and devices and interaction points and channels that serve as today’s canvas. Traditional graphic designers are often trained to deliver solutions that demonstrate personal artistic execution versus serving the needs of users first.

These designers end up hiding navigation or labels or make cute visual devices to arrange things that are more for layout purity than user success. Developers may have similar desires to either keep the code ultra clean on one hand or use an overweight framework to reduce short-term risk and production time on the other hand. Collaboration and knowing the necessary trade-offs are keys to success.

Collaborative teams have to be willing and able to adapt their approach to the needs of the user, and invite other team members to identify how to do things better. This kind of consensus-building requires both open-mindedness and flexibility on the part of individual team members.

## How to Improve Design Collaboration
Since collaboration is at the core of user experience success, how can a team help it flourish? Here’s a few tips on how to foster open communication and more effective teamwork on a design team.

### Create a sense of psychological safety.
Over the span of two years, [Google studied](https://rework.withgoogle.com/blog/five-keys-to-a-successful-google-team/) some of their most effective teams to understand what makes them so successful. Among more obvious factors like dependability and structure, one important factor stood out: Psychological safety. 

“It's unnerving to feel like you're in an environment where everything you do or say is under a microscope,” [one article](https://www.inc.com/michael-schneider/google-thought-they-knew-how-to-create-the-perfect.html) about the study reads. “But imagine [a situation] in which everyone is safe to take risks, voice their opinions, and ask judgment-free questions. A culture where managers provide air cover and create safe zones so employees can let down their guard.”

This is psychological safety, and it is the bedrock of collaboration. Without it, team members are unlikely to voice their concerns, thoughts and opinions in a way that will benefit the team and the final product.

### Establish a shared language.
User experience teams are usually diverse. Not only do designers, developers, researchers and strategists all come from different disciplines, they may also encompass a wide range of experience levels. Sometimes, the only way to empower teams to communicate more effectively is to establish a shared language that everyone — regardless of their background and experience — can understand.

Exercises like [card sorting](https://www.nngroup.com/articles/card-sorting-definition/) and mind-mapping can be a great tool to build a shared lexicon, as can simply asking team members to shadow one another. Fostering empathy between distinct teams is the key to better communication.
Embrace brainstorming.

Brainstorming, though we may want to consider calling these exercises closer to design thinking, can be a powerful way to collect and compare many different solutions to one another, and identify which ideas have the most potential. Psychological safety plays a big part here, since brainstorming, or collaborative exploration, requires everyone in a room to feel comfortable both offering their ideas and having those ideas discussed in an open setting.

There are plenty of [creative brainstorming techniques](https://drawbackwards.com/blog/10-creative-brainstorming-techniques-anyone-can-use/) that promote both open communication and psychological safety, including: 

#### Start with the Worst First
A counterintuitive but surprisingly effective approach to brainstorming is to start by coming up with bad ideas rather than good ones. This tactic not only sets the bar low enough to invite ideas, but also helps team members get aligned behind what constitutes a “bad” solution. For example: “Where do you want to go to lunch?” How about McDonald’s! “OK, now where do we want to go for lunch?”

#### Ask “Why?” Five Times
Sometimes referred to simply as the “toddler approach,” asking why is a helpful way to get to the root of how a solution solves a problem. Doing it five times ensures that you can clearly see if and how a particular idea supports a shared vision of success. And it can uncover the deeper reason why or why not to do something.

#### Bubbles Over Balloons
I first shared this idea in [a talk about backward thinking](https://creativemornings.com/talks/ward-andrews) for Creative Mornings. Balloons pop on accident, balloons are held tightly and are considered precious — bubbles pop all the time freely, by design. By thinking of new ideas as bubbles rather than balloons, team members can better build upon great ideas without holding onto solutions that may not serve a particular user’s needs. Tee up an exercise to “blow as many bubbles as you can” and see what happens with that freedom to create, knowing most will fail.

#### Make feedback and critique exciting.
Feedback and critique is a crucial element of the design thinking process, but that doesn’t mean it’s done well all or even most of the time. For many creatives, the prospect of having their work ‘critiqued’ is enough to send a cold shiver down their spine. That’s because in many working environments, critiques are still seen as inherently negative.

The key to unlocking your team’s creative potential is to make critiques an exciting opportunity for learning and growth. Just ask [Jared Spool](https://medium.com/@jmspool/what-goes-into-a-well-done-critique-3a8780884055), who writes: “A well-done critique is a way to step away from the specifics of the design process and better understand how to create great designs. We do this by starting with the current design and asking ‘What is it we’re really trying to do here?’ and ‘How close are we to doing it?’”

To make critique exciting rather than scary, shift your approach from “What feedback can we give / receive about this work?” to “What can each of us learn from the work this designer has done?” This way, even the most profound [UX disagreements](https://drawbackwards.com/blog/design-process-for-solving-ux-disagreements/) can be solved without losing sight of the end goal.

## Creating Design Success through Teamwork
Collaboration can be scary. Many people hesitate to do it for fear of wasting time, going over budget, or getting pushback on their ideas. These are completely normal concerns, but the pros of collaboration usually far outweigh the cons. Though collaboration may take more time in the beginning, it saves time and budget in rework later on. 

This is why collaboration, teamwork and an ability to “play nice with others” is so crucial to UX design success. Without it, valuable ideas and perspectives get lost in the shuffle of office politics, big egos and undermines or excludes the needs of a user. Collaboration takes patience, pragmatism and flexibility on the part of every team member, but the hard work that goes into it always pays off.

No. 11: Collaborating and Critiquing for Growth

What if there were one phrase that could align your team and organization, speed up decision-making, and make your business more successful?

Spoiler alert: There is! It’s your “why”: your company purpose, the deeper reason you’re doing what you’re doing, and the most important UX design competency.

Design that Goes Deeper
-----------------------

When the average person says “design,” they often mean style or aesthetic – how something looks. This is a normal association, but changing times call for changing definitions. Technology has disrupted design, leading to fragmentation of specialties, exponentially faster timelines, and higher demands from both users and businesses.

As a result, the role of a design professional has had to change too. No longer can a designer just create a product that looks pretty and call it a day. Pretty products may impress someone for a moment, but they don’t create lasting value.

Good aesthetic design is fleeting. It’s subjective. Trendy. Surface-level. Once a user digs a little deeper and sees that their needs aren’t fully met, or once their taste changes and they move on to the next trend, it’s over. A product or service must have _value_, not just _vanity_, to make a real, long-lasting impact.

Value comes from purpose. Consumers and employees have endless options for companies to do business with. A meaningful company mission — the deeper “why” behind their work — is the secret ingredient of winning them over.

> A meaningful company mission — the deeper “why” behind their work — is the secret ingredient of winning over consumers and employees.

3 Ways the “Why” Helps You Win
------------------------------

### More Motivated, Loyal Employees

Anyone who has ever tried to influence a child to do something knows the most common response: “Why?” Influencing employees and colleagues isn’t all that different. Humans need to know the reason behind requests and actions in order to fully understand and “buy in.”

A designer who’s given a task with no context or background is going to come up with a drastically different (and probably subpar) solution than one who is clear on the purpose and goal of the task.

Knowing the deeper “why” not only affects how employees approach individual tasks, but also their job as a whole. A company purpose attracts like-minded candidates, motivates their work on a daily basis, and makes them want to stay with the firm. In fact, [Deloitte’s research](https://www2.deloitte.com/insights/us/en/deloitte-review/issue-16/employee-engagement-strategies.html) shows that “‘mission-driven’ companies have 30 percent higher levels of innovation and 40 percent higher levels of retention, and they tend to be first or second in their market segment.”

Consider Nike. Yes, they make great shoes, but their goal is deeper than that: to bring inspiration and motivation to every athlete in the world (not just professional athletes, but anyone with a body). This purpose has attracted customers and employees alike. They’ve become a footwear and apparel leader, and were ranked #2 on [CareerBliss’ list of companies with the happiest employees](https://apparelmag.com/report-nike-has-some-happiest-employees-country). Their “why” has helped them win.

> A company purpose attracts like-minded candidates, motivates their work on a daily basis, and makes them want to stay with the firm.

### More Motivated, Loyal Customers

Happy employees provide better service to customers, who also appreciate working with companies that have aspirations beyond just making money. The EY Beacon Institute pointed out [in their research](https://www.15five.com/blog/purpose-driven-companies-driving-new-economy/) that “Purpose-led brands are more successful in acquiring and retaining customers. This may make intuitive sense, but it is also backed up by behavioral science: people buy things that make them feel good about themselves. And people do business with those they trust.”

Like Nike, TOMS has become a successful shoe brand because it strikes a chord with customers. The firm started with a simple idea: Every time a consumer buys a pair of TOMS shoes, they donate a pair to someone in need. This “One to One” model catapulted the company from a small startup to a $400 million giant with over 60 million customers and raving fans.

[![TOMS Shoes Company Mission Statement](//images.ctfassets.net/6ygji0ixcksy/6p7gliwyw8kk0Wk8Wu8AiI/b930a36509abc6bcdabc693768a090f0/TOMS-Shoes-Company-Mission-Statement.png)](http://design.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/TOMS-Shoes-Company-Mission-Statement.png)

Source: [TOMS](https://www.toms.com/about-toms)

> Happy employees provide better service to customers, who also appreciate working with companies that have aspirations beyond just making money.

### Better Business Results

Loyal employees and loyal customers are a recipe for business success. Study after study proves it. Take [recent research from EY and the Harvard Business Review](https://cdn.imperative.com/media/public/Global_Purpose_Index_2016.pdf), which shows the stark difference in growth between purpose-driven and non purpose-driven companies.

[![Purpose at Work - EY Beacon Institute and Harvard Business Review Research](//images.ctfassets.net/6ygji0ixcksy/4fgUkdc3nWcKWEIYaCwUQO/c78209e3676f5200460aa1e8521cca04/EY-Beacon-and-Harvard-Business-Review-Research.png)](http://design.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/EY-Beacon-and-Harvard-Business-Review-Research.png)

Source: [Purpose at Work](https://cdn.imperative.com/media/public/Global_Purpose_Index_2016.pdf)

  
These companies have a crystal-clear idea of their “why,” and they use it as a North Star to guide every product, every person, and every decision to success.

> Happy employees provide better service to customers, who also appreciate working with companies that have aspirations beyond just making money.

What’s Your “Why”?
------------------

Being able to articulate your purpose is essential for motivating employees to build a meaningful experience and motivating customers to buy it. Whether you’re creating a company from the ground up or simply starting to work on a new experience or task, ask yourself these questions:

*   Why are you creating this product / service / experience / feature?
*   What problem will it solve?
*   Have you ever experienced that problem yourself? If so, how did it feel? What benefits or results did you experience when that problem was solved?
*   How will your solution improve the lives of your users or customers?
*   How will it improve your business?
*   What difference will it make in the world?
*   Why should your users or customers care about it? What’s in it for them?

Once you have the answers to those questions, the next step is to use them to articulate your purpose statement, which will serve as the North Star for your UX projects. Curious how to do it? Stay tuned for our complete course on “Knowing Your Why” coming soon!

No. 1: Knowing Your "Why"

In 1959, TV Guide published an essay written by then-senator John F. Kennedy titled, “A Force That Changed the Political Scene.” In his essay, he wrote about how television could fundamentally change the way political candidates connect with the voting public — not just with what they say, but how they say it.

The little-known policymaker was proven right during the very first publicly-aired presidential debate between himself and Richard Nixon. Though commentators who listened to the radio broadcast named Nixon the winner, those that watched the debate on television preferred the calm and collected JFK to the visibly uncomfortable Nixon, who dabbed sweat off his forehead between remarks. 

Though Nixon’s campaign scrambled to improve his image in subsequent televised debates, the damage was done. JFK would go on to become the President of the United States just a few months later — thanks in large part to the power of the televised broadcast.

JFK’s approach to political campaigning is a perfect example of how (and why) so many professionals struggle to convey the value of UX in their organizations. Some less experienced designers believe that their job begins and ends with making digital experiences look and feel great. In their view, the work should speak for itself. 

Skilled UX designers, product managers and future leaders, however, understand that the value design brings to the business isn’t always obvious. Consequently, they are also capable of making the case for great UX design. How? By communicating their message in a way that will make the most impact on their audience. Like JFK, they recognize that it’s not just about what you say, but how you say it.

This ability to weave business knowledge with communication skills is the 10th competency of UX: __Championing the value of user experience__.

# Speaking the Language of Digital Business

Few people speak the same way at work as they do at home. The words and phrases we use with colleagues are wholly different than the language we use to communicate with our families and friends. Acronyms like ROI and CTA, for instance, may not mean much in family settings, but they play a central role in how we speak about business.

The same goes for teams within a business as well. Designers use an entirely different set of words and phrases than, say, someone working in accounting or legal. Yet, the hallmark of user experience design is its influence on every aspect of business, from accounting and finance to customer service and business development. 

By adapting their message to their target audience internally, UX strategists to more easily operate right where they need to be — at the center of user needs, business goals and technical constraints.

![UX venn](//images.ctfassets.net/6ygji0ixcksy/1JPK661VqTmynSrq52iB4j/052257a64d02c0939e1e7cc9418bc6a5/UX_venn.jpeg)

*Source: [Prototypr.io](https://blog.prototypr.io/business-goals-user-needs-8fc0f3ede5af)*

This is why user experience designers have to be able to adapt their storytelling style to their audience. Instead of saying “adding affordance” to talk about interaction design of a button to customer service reps, they may say “making the button appear pushable” instead. The message remains the same, but the audience’s ability to understand and connect with that story improves when designers use words that make sense to them.

UX designers do this every day with great [UX writing](https://drawbackwards.com/blog/what-is-ux-writing-meaningful-experiences/), and this same skill influences how they talk to colleagues as well. Being able to connect design decisions to metrics is critical, and language plays a central role in doing so.

__Let’s look at a few examples…__

## Active Users and Customer Retention
It’s one thing to attract new users to an experience — it’s entirely another to keep them there. Great UX design is one way to do that, since users are more likely to return to experiences that make it easy to complete a task or set of tasks. One of the easiest ways to determine if users think an experience is meaningful is to look at how many users continue to interact with an experience over time. 

UX designers can use rates of active and returning users to make the case for design changes, like this:

__Instead of this:__ “If an interaction or workflow feels seamless and frictionless, they are more likely to continue interacting with it in the future.”

__Say this:__ “Forrester data indicates that experiences crafted by UX designers have higher rates of customer retention.” 

## Net Promoter Score (NPS)
Net Promoter Score, or NPS, helps business leaders understand how loyal their customers are to their brand or their products. Loyal enough to promote the brand! It’s calculated based on responses to a single question: “How likely is it that you would recommend our company, product or service to a friend or colleague?” Higher NPS scores usually correlate strongly with financial growth.

User experience designers know that customers are much more likely to remain loyal to a product or service that feels [meaningful and intuitive](https://drawbackwards.com/blog/ux-design-success-ladder-for-meaningful-product-design/). These words, however, are unlikely to persuade business leaders who are more interested in understanding how UX impacts the bottom line.

Instead, skilled UX designers may use NPS to convey qualitative design value in quantitative terms. For instance:

__Instead of this:__ “People are more likely to remain loyal to experiences that feel meaningful to them.”

__Say this:__ “Experiences designed by our UX designers showed a bump of +5 NPS in A/B testing.”

## Standard Usability Scale (SUS)
The [Standard Usability Scale](https://www.usability.gov/how-to-and-tools/methods/system-usability-scale.html), or SUS, is an industry-standard tool used to provide a quick glimpse into the overall usability of a digital experience. It consists of a 10 item questionnaire with five response options, ranging from Strongly agree to Strongly disagree.

The SUS is a helpful tool to quantify how well an experience meets the needs of a user. For designers, it’s a helpful way to explain an experience success quickly and easily. For instance:

__Instead of this:__ “UX designers can make digital experiences more coherent, consistent and easy to use.”

__Say this:__ “Adding UX designers has been shown to push our apps from Unacceptable to Excellent on the System Usability Scale.” 

# Bringing it All Together: UX Rings
At Drawbackwards, we use a tool called __[UX Rings](https://uxrings.com/)__ that takes SUS and NPS one step further by providing a more comprehensive look at performance in five key areas. 

![UX-Rings-Score-for-Asana](//images.ctfassets.net/6ygji0ixcksy/7wTLpqIKk81iA8Bo2pCpYC/8fb4d4682ca38d06ef9a57ea8d2a1575/UX-Rings-Score-for-Asana.jpg)
*Source: [UX Rings](https://drawbackwards.com/blog/ux-rings-a-system-for-measuring-ux-design-success)*

Each rating correlates to a rung on the [user experience success ladder](https://drawbackwards.com/blog/ux-design-success-ladder-for-meaningful-product-design/), which can be a helpful tool when discussing UX with other business stakeholders. The tool helps designers and strategists quantify their design decisions. Unlike other, more simplified ratings, UX Rings immediately highlights key areas for improvement.

# Data and Storytelling in the Digital Age
Beyond mere design skill, UX designers and leaders have to be skilled storytellers. Why? Because aligning business goals with user needs isn’t easy. Unless designers can connect the dots between the business and its customers’ needs, they won’t succeed in turning business initiatives into customer-centric experiences. 

Most importantly, using language that makes sense to internal stakeholders helps UX professionals better answer questions like this:
 
- Why should we invest in this?
- How will this support our business goals?
- How will this improve the user experience?
- What’s the ROI?
- What’s the risk if we don’t invest in this?

When done right, UX can fundamentally change the way a business positions itself in the marketplace. With so many businesses vying for the attention of increasingly sophisticated digital customers, the role of UX is crucial — and the importance of storytelling in and outside of a business is crucial as well.


No. 10: Championing the Value of UX

This is the seventh installment of our series on the [12 Competencies of UX Design](https://drawbackwards.com/blog/the-12-competencies-of-ux-design/).

* * *

For nearly a decade, Changi International Airport in Singapore has held the title of the “world’s best airport”. It boasts two runways, four terminals, and handles an influx of over 85 million passengers every year — but much like the city that surrounds it, Changi Airport used to be nothing more than a desolate island covered in swampland. 

Only after dozens of architects spent years researching, sketching, refining, blueprinting, and modeling the structure did Changi become the modern marvel it is today. 

It’s this same process of sketching, refining, and modeling that allows CX consultants and UX designers to create meaningful digital experiences, too. This process of illustrating an interaction, user interface or workflow is called prototyping, and it’s a critical part of user experience success. 

# The Purpose of Prototyping

Before a UX designer puts a pen to paper, they should have already [established their “why”](https://drawbackwards.com/blog/knowing-your-purpose-ux-design-competency-1/); [defined their vision of the final outcome](https://drawbackwards.com/blog/creating-vision-desired-outcome-ux-design-competency-2/); and [identified their target audience’s needs through empathy and research](https://drawbackwards.com/blog/understanding-your-audience-through-empathy-and-research-ux-design-competency-3/). These steps are crucial because they tell a designer what will make a digital interface or product successful.

Prototyping takes this process one step further by turning these ideas and concepts into concrete examples, which can range from simple Sharpie drawings to fully interactive digital models (more on this later). 

Regardless of what form these prototypes take, they all help UX designers, and the users interacting with them, answer questions like: 

- What might the ideal solution look, sound, and feel like?
- How might it work?
- Are we sure we’re solving the right problem?
- How will this idea meet needs and relieve pains?
- Is this solution technically feasible?

Ultimately, the goal of prototyping is to show rather than tell us what works, what doesn’t, and why. 

# Examples of Prototypes

Though prototypes can be broken down into many different groups, for the purposes of this post we’ll organize them into three categories: __low-fidelity, high-fidelity__, and __interactive__.

## Low-Fidelity Prototypes

Low-fidelity prototypes are static, super-simplified representations of a final product or interface used in earlier stages of UX design. They are often a series of black-and-white sketches that broadly illustrate a particular workflow.

Low-fidelity prototypes are usually not designed to scale, do not include things like brand colors or imagery, and only include key elements of written content. What they do include, however, are general representations of interaction and communication elements like content hierarchy, focus of interaction, and supporting pieces like buttons, titles, or menus; and elements that show illustrate a user might move through a workflow.

__Low-fidelity prototypes are great for:__

- Low-stakes brainstorming and ideation
- Getting alignment around broad design concepts or structures
- Narrow down big-picture problems and solutions
- Rapid experimentation and testing of high-level functionality
- Establishing an interface’s overall [context, structure, and flow](https://drawbackwards.com/blog/reducing-friction-context-structure-flow-ux-competency-5/)

## High-Fidelity Prototypes

High-fidelity prototypes are intended to more closely represent a more refined product or interface. They are often designed to scale, include things like brand colors and imagery, and are most often in a digital format.

The creation of high-fidelity prototypes usually follows multiple iterations of low-fidelity prototypes, which have been reviewed, refined, and adjusted by multiple stakeholders. 

__High-fidelity prototypes are great for:__

- User testing and feedback
- More detailed review of design elements and imagery
- Determining an experience’s holistic look and feel
- Integrating brand identity, voice, and tone
- Later-stage review and approval with stakeholders and end-users
- Refining specific interactions or design elements

## Interactive Prototypes

Interactive prototypes can be low-fidelity or high-fidelity, but they all have one important thing in common: they respond to the actions of a user. This responsiveness can be very simple (like a clickable wireframe) or very complex (like a coded prototype) depending on what needs to be tested and why.

Usually, interactive prototypes are used to identify possible points of friction in an interaction or workflow. They may also be used to give stakeholders a sense of how well certain interactions are performing. Ultimately, interactive prototypes are a vital tool when it comes to [interaction design and testing](https://drawbackwards.com/blog/UX-competency-6-art-of-interaction-design).

__Interactive prototypes are great for:__

- Moderated testing with users
- Streamlining the development process
- Refining a particular interaction within a workflow
- Confirming a common vision among users and stakeholders

# Perfecting the Prototyping Process

A common misconception among novice UX designers is that every UX design project will require the same prototype deliverables, but that cannot be further from the truth. Prototypes are never final deliverables even when they are high-fidelity. Instead, they are tools that can help designers and stakeholders make better decisions about users and the experiences they enjoy.

That’s why at Drawbackwards, we see prototyping as just one small component of our [Design Thinking Process](https://drawbackwards.com/blog/drawbackwards-design-thinking-process). That process first establishes a problem we aim to solve through research, fosters empathy for those interacting with the experience being created, and then defines that problem before any design occurs. It looks a little like this:

![Design-Thinking-Process@2x](//images.ctfassets.net/6ygji0ixcksy/2P2Xsf0DguREx97yeE7aWt/8331bd46d9af41ccf2be885c4dd674a9/Design-Thinking-Process_2x.jpg)

While many novice UX designers will begin designing prototypes almost immediately, savvy UX professionals know any design work should be preceded by research and empathy. Otherwise, prototypes would be guided by designers’ and stakeholders’ personal preferences and not by what users and the business really want and need.

Whether it’s hand-drawn sketches or fully interactive coded interfaces, prototypes help UX designers reduce friction and create more meaningful experiences for their audience. That’s what makes prototyping and interface design such a critical UX competency — no matter how you go about it.


Work

Healthcare

Business to Consumer

Business to Business

Cybersecurity

Financial Services

Energy

Hospitality

Food & Beverage

12 Competencies of UX Design

The 12 Competencies of UX Design

No. 1: Knowing Your "Why"

No. 2: Creating a Vision of the Desired Outcome

No. 3: Understanding Your Audience Through Empathy and Research

No. 4: Measuring Audience Experience Success

No. 5: Reducing Friction with Context, Structure, and Flow

No. 6: The Art of Interaction Design

No. 7: Interface Design and Prototyping

No. 8: Writing for Meaningful Experiences

No. 9: Infusing Assistance and Intelligence

No. 10: Championing the Value of UX

No. 11: Collaborating and Critiquing for Growth

No. 12: Leadership and Maturity

12 Competencies of UX Design

The 12 Competencies of UX Design

No. 1: Knowing Your "Why"

No. 2: Creating a Vision of the Desired Outcome

No. 3: Understanding Your Audience Through Empathy and Research

No. 4: Measuring Audience Experience Success

No. 5: Reducing Friction with Context, Structure, and Flow

No. 6: The Art of Interaction Design

No. 7: Interface Design and Prototyping

No. 8: Writing for Meaningful Experiences

No. 9: Infusing Assistance and Intelligence

No. 10: Championing the Value of UX

No. 11: Collaborating and Critiquing for Growth

No. 12: Leadership and Maturity

Get monthly insights on innovation and UX.