December 30, 2022
UX Design Year in Review: What We Learned (and Confirmed) in 2022
By Ward Andrews
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The biggest UX design lessons we learned (and confirmed) in 2022 come down to four things: put people before business needs, invest in UX maturity not just quick fixes, use heuristic evaluations as your diagnostic baseline, and never let good design get torpedoed by bad backend infrastructure.
Here's the full breakdown.
Why Does UX Design Still Come Back to People First?
Every year we say it. Every year we have to prove it again.
At Drawbackwards, we work hard every day to create meaningful experiences by helping make bad things good and good things great. That's how we've helped create billions of dollars in value for our clients and partners. We show them how to climb higher up the experience success ladder and make their customers happy with clear and innovative solutions.
But to do that, we can't lean back and rely on our decades of problem-solving experience. We have to lean in and bring fresh thinking to familiar problems. We have to adapt and learn.
Each year, as technology evolves and our clients bring us new problems, we find new ways to uncover the true value of UX maturity. We then pass that value along to our clients by applying our knowledge and expertise in new ways and by helping them grow in their own UX maturity.
That's why at our recent quarterly team meeting we took a look back to uncover what we've learned over the past year. How did we help make our clients' products more amazing? How did we deliver more meaning to their customers and users? What new solutions did we find to old problems? What new insights are we taking into the next year?
What follows is a quick rundown of our biggest UX design lessons learned (and confirmed) in 2022.
What Happens When Business Needs Drive UX Decisions?
You end up with chaos for the end user.
As the digital economy matures, product portfolios are growing exponentially. Companies face the challenge of merging homegrown products with new acquisitions to create a more complete solution for users. But this often leads to a complex user experience driven primarily by business needs and problems.
Complexity is the biggest barrier to user acquisition and retention. If people can't do the things that your products offer, they'll abandon them or not buy them in the first place.
We had several projects in 2022 reinforce for us the importance of getting back to basics and focusing on people first. Business leaders may grapple with how to promote and elevate different product offerings. But what users want to know is how to find what they need when they need it.
How Do You Simplify a Complex Product Portfolio?
Ask the hard questions first:
- What real value does each of your products deliver to your customers and users?
- What are users trying to do with your apps, and when and how are they trying to do that?
When you know the answers to these questions, you can start combining the pieces of your product portfolio into a cohesive experience.
Business-driven UX decisions show up as confusing navigation, several apps running at the same time, and wasted technical resources. By crafting a streamlined user experience across all your products, you can help users focus on one application at a time. You can create a framework and structure that not only fits your current portfolio but also supports your future growth.
At the end of the day, what's going to help your users is also going to help your business. An intuitive interface that gives users a logical way to navigate through your portfolio will help them not only see, but feel, the value of your solution and buy it when they're ready.
What Is UX Maturity and Why Does It Drive Real Business Value?
UX maturity is your organisation's ability to consistently deliver great user experiences -- not just fix individual problems as they come up.
Much of our work over the years has focused on specific problems. That's still the first thing that brings clients to us. But we've learned that solving one problem at a time doesn't move the needle much on long-term business outcomes.
Most problems arise from a lack of UX maturity. The most effective solutions come from it. That's why we bake UX maturity into every engagement with our clients.
How Do We Help Clients Build UX Maturity?
We use the Ladder as a model to establish their current level of maturity and the roadmap to UX success.
It's not enough to make your product or service functional. That encourages a whack-a-mole approach to solving one problem at a time. For long-term success, you need to figure out how to deliver delight and meaning to your customers.
The Ladder helps our clients visualise how they can exceed customer expectations and deliver more revenue. It's only possible to reach new heights if you know where you're starting and you can see a way to get to the top.
Are Heuristic Evaluations Still Worth It?
Yes -- they're among the most valuable tools in our toolbox.
Heuristic evaluations are an oft-overlooked UX design tool, but they keep proving their worth. They help us start engagements with quick feedback and recommendations to guide future work.
Many of our clients ask us for a UX audit. But these can often feel subjective, especially when clients are still getting to know us. We've found that when we anchor our insights in tangible and quantitative usability principles through a heuristic analysis, we can deliver more value to our clients right from the start.
What Does a Heuristic Evaluation Actually Give You?
- Low-hanging fruit that can make a big difference quickly
- A clear backlog of improvements to guide your larger efforts
- An objective lens on your product that removes internal bias
For some projects, a heuristic analysis is enough to make significant improvements. For others, it's the tip of the iceberg. Either way, it's an essential tool in any UX strategy.
Can Good UX Design Fail Because of Bad Backend Infrastructure?
Absolutely. Poor coding or technical infrastructure can torpedo even the best UX designs.
This isn't a knock on the many talented developers who we work with on a daily basis. It's an organisational flaw. Dev teams are often inundated with backlogs of quick fix requests and patches. They're also often hamstrung by poor tech tools chosen to fit the budget more than the needs of the team.
One of the most important things we've learned to do in a new engagement is to take a look under the hood. A good auto mechanic doesn't rely on the strange noise you're hearing to diagnose the problem. They'll dive into the inner workings to see where things have fallen apart.
How Do We Audit the Technical Side of UX?
We audit the code just like we audit the design:
- Take an inventory of what's there
- Understand what it's intended to do
- Assess whether it's working or not
- Vote on whether it should stay or go
Users feel supported when the product feels fast and responsive. Excess code can get in the way and drag down the user experience. Challenging what our clients are doing, and why they're doing it, before diving into the design helps make us more effective. We can address technical issues that will not only improve the user experience but also make the dev team more productive.
It makes no sense to create something that looks good on the outside if it's doomed to fall to pieces on the inside.
Let's Learn and Grow Together in 2023
It's time to start thinking about what lies ahead in the new year. What new angles will we take on old problems? How will we apply our skills and expertise in new ways to solve problems for our clients and their customers? What new challenges lie ahead?
We're excited to take our learnings from the past year and apply them to new projects. Let's start a conversation now about how we can help you address your core problems in 2023.
FAQ
What are the most important UX design lessons from 2022? The four biggest lessons are: prioritise user needs over business needs when designing product experiences, invest in UX maturity rather than one-off fixes, use heuristic evaluations as a diagnostic baseline at the start of any engagement, and audit your backend infrastructure alongside your design.
What is UX maturity and how do I know where my company stands? UX maturity is your organisation's capacity to deliver consistently great user experiences at a systemic level. Most companies start by fixing individual problems reactively. Mature UX organisations build processes, frameworks, and culture that deliver delight and meaning to users by design. Tools like the Ladder help benchmark where you are and map a path forward.
What is a heuristic evaluation in UX design? A heuristic evaluation is a structured review of a product or service against established usability principles. It gives you an objective, evidence-based snapshot of what's working and what isn't -- without needing large-scale user research to get started. It's fast, quantifiable, and a strong foundation for prioritising UX improvements.
Why does backend code quality affect user experience? Because users feel the performance of your product, not just its appearance. Slow load times, unresponsive interactions, and buggy behaviour are often symptoms of accumulated technical debt -- excess or poorly maintained code -- rather than design failures. Fixing UX without addressing the underlying infrastructure is building on a shaky foundation.
How do you simplify a product portfolio that has grown too complex? Start by understanding what your users are actually trying to do, not what your business wants to promote. Map user jobs, tasks, and needs. Then restructure the experience around those needs rather than your internal product architecture. A coherent navigation and unified experience across products will do more for acquisition and retention than any marketing hierarchy will.
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