Designing the user experience (UX) means making a digital product. The plan is made with a UX strategy. A UX strategy is a detailed plan to match a company's brand identity with the user experience it wants at every point where a customer interacts with the company. For this plan to work best, it should be in place before any design is done.   In this article, we'll take a closer look at what UX strategy is, why it's an important skill for UX designers to have, and how to create a successful UX strategy for whatever product or service you're designing.    

Four UX strategy pillars

  Jaime Levy's 2015 book "UX Strategy: How to Make Innovative Digital Products That People Want" explains four key parts of UX strategy that work together to make a strategy work.    

1. Business strategy:

  These are the company's guiding principles, along with its competitive advantage, revenue streams, and high-level business goals.  

2. Value innovation:

  Value innovation happens when a company tries to provide value to customers (differentiation) and lower costs for the company at the same time.  

3. Validated user research:

  Instead of guessing what is valuable to a customer, ask them directly what they want before you start designing. This keeps companies and designers from spending time, money, and effort on a product that no one wants.  

4. Killer user experience design:

  Once the other tenets are in place, it's time to create a great user experience that focuses on the product's most important features. This experience should not only give the customer something of value, but it should also be easy.   UX is a field you might want to work in. With the Google UX Design Professional Certificate, you can start learning the skills you need for a job from UX professionals at Google. In less than six months, you can finish three projects from start to finish and earn a credential for your resume.  

Why is UX strategy important?

  When a product team has a good UX strategy in place, they can stay focused on solving the right problem for their target users. If you take the time to make a UX strategy, you may also find that it helps you in other ways.     · It gets business leaders on board. A UX strategy connects the planned design to business goals, which helps the people in charge see the value of what you're doing. · It brings together business goals, user needs, and the capabilities of technology. This can help set priorities for time and resources as the design is being made. · It shows how to measure success. When you know from the start what success looks like and how you'll measure it, it's easier to see how design decisions affect the product and keep it moving in the right direction. · It makes people think about the user first. Validated user research helps the UX team learn more about the user, such as what makes them unhappy and what their goals are. · It ties everything together. UX strategy reminds you to take a step back and look at all the ways a user interacts with your product or brand.  

How to create a UX strategy?

  Whether you want to become a UX designer or are already one, being able to come up with a good UX strategy can be a useful (and marketable) skill. Walk through these steps to build your UX strategy before you start your next design project.    

1. Stakeholder interviews can help you figure out your business strategy.

  Get the people who make decisions and the leaders of the company involved early on in your project. As a UX designer, you should often put all of your attention on the user. Now is the time to focus on the business side of things.   How do you position the product you're making in the market? What are the big-picture goals and objectives of the company? How do the people who have a stake in the product measure its success?   If you answer these questions early on, you can be sure that when you turn your attention to the user, you are still thinking about the brand and business.  

2. Find out how to stand out by researching and analyzing your competitors.

  Once you know how to match your design to the company's brand and strategy, you can start to figure out where the product fits into the market. To get someone to use your product, you'll have to give them something of value. From where will that worth come? What makes you better than your competitors?   Find out what's already available on the market to meet this user's need, and think about the key features that will make your design stand out.  

3. Validated user research will help you keep the user in mind.

  Make sure you're making something that people want to use. Do this by getting early feedback from the people you want to reach. You can do this in a number of ways, such as through surveys and questionnaires, focus groups, A/B testing, card sorting, interviews, or field studies.   Use real users to test the value you think your product will provide. If the data doesn't back up that assumed value, you should take a step back and rethink your product.  

4. Set clear goals for your design to get where you want to go.

  Just as important as knowing where you are now is knowing where you want to go. Create some specific metrics to measure the success of your design based on the information you've gathered from both users and stakeholders. Be clear about what you want to accomplish, how you plan to do it, and how you'll know if you've done it.  

5. Run planned experiments and iterate based on what you learn.

  To make a product that users love, you often have to be willing to try things out and fail. Let your UX strategy guide your work as you work on your design. As you work, keep checking to make sure that both your strategy and your design are right. Make an MVP (minimum viable product), test it with real users, and make changes based on what they say.  

How do I become a UX strategist?

    As more and more companies realize how important it is to put thought into UX design, the different roles in UX are becoming clearer. UX strategist is one of these specialized roles. As a UX strategist, you act as a bridge between the business and the user by helping the design team make products that are focused on the user and fit with the company's strategy and brand.   Since user research is such an important part of making a UX strategy, becoming a UX researcher could be a good first step toward becoming a UX strategist. If you want to move into the strategy part of UX, you should work on these skills:   · UX research: If you know how to do both qualitative and quantitative research well, you can make sure that your strategy works. · Negotiation: Your job will be to find a good balance between what the user wants and what the business needs. · Design thinking: If you know a lot about UX design best practices, you can solve design problems in a more creative and effective way. · Communication: When making a UX strategy, one of the most important things to do is learn more about the business stakeholders and target users. · Leadership: As a UX strategist, you will usually be in charge of the design team. · Business acumen: When you understand business strategy, you can help connect the user to the company.