The Top 5 Blockers to Building a Robust UX Culture

“Start from the Customer Experience and Work Backwards to the Technology and Not the Other Way Around.” — Steve Jobs

The concept of developing solutions backward from customer experience is no longer a “new” idea. The impact of UX is well documented and is measured in multiple ways, including fewer conversion drop-offs, increases in revenue, greater customer retention, overall improved team productivity and velocity, and reduction in support and development costs. However, as the drive toward an Experience Economy has accelerated, there have been some strong conditions placed on the UX culture a team and an organization builds in order for the ROI to be gained. Too often, “UX” is a box that is checked off, but the actual development of internal UX maturity and a design-driven culture is left undefined, leading to a loss of revenue.

Worse, the collision of UX culture with Agile Dev Ops culture has been poorly theorized, and therefore Engineering and UX are frequently at odds, siloed, and slow each other down rather than increasing velocity, morale, and productivity. The loss of time in today’s world of accelerating change is the biggest risk these siloed cultures introduce.

So while the ROI on UX is amply demonstrated, the caveat is that it must be executed well and with the appropriate measures and guardrails to succeed. In other words, it isn’t that UX has been tried and found wanting. It is that few people are actually trying UX. Having performed as an Innovation, UX, CX, and DX consultant on teams across industries from start-up to some of the largest employers in the US and abroad, I have noted common blockers to building a robust UX-driven culture when either:

a) trying to start an internal digital transformation toward a UX culture in scaled, older cultures or

b) starting up a new UX practice in a new enterprise.

Below I list the Top 5 Blockers and then an accompanying Mindset Shift that can guide microsuccesses that will add up to continuous transformation.

1. Placing UX culture in traditional organizational hierarchies.
2. Keeping UX separate from Agile transformation.
3. Allowing silos between UX and Engineering to become embedded.
4. Hiring the Wrong People
5. Not integrating UX with a strong Product IT Culture

The next five posts will address each of these one at a time.

In the meantime, I’m curious…what blockers have you noted?