What Is the Difference Between Experience Design and Experience Strategy?

I learned to fish on the saltwater open seas as a child. We lived near Rockaway Beach in Queens; some neighborhood men had boats. Pictures show me fishing when I was about three or four years old in an orange life jacket, drinking grape soda, and holding a rod and reel. We went fishing for fluke or flounder, mostly. You dropped your line in the water; sometimes you got a bite, and sometimes you didn’t. Various amateur fishermen I knew would have some ideas (and some superstitions) about how to make getting lucky more likely. You experimented with different kinds of bait, living bait, dead beat, synthetic bait. Any one you chose, you dropped your line in and you just waited. It took a long time, fluke and flounder fishing. It was fun, to be out on the open sea, with people who liked to have fun, but kind of random and sometimes a little boring and frustrating.

As an adult, however, I went fishing with a professional mackerel fisherman in Nova Scotia. He scouted the open water for large, sliver, amoebic shapes in the water that indicated there was a school. We would approach in the boat, drop these bars in the water with all these baitless hooks on them, wait a few seconds, and pull the bars out of the water with tons of silvery fish hanging off them: no effort, no bait, no waiting.

The waiting happened as we searched for the schools. But we only dropped our hooks in when we knew a school of fish was there. I don't fish anymore. I eat fish, and I think fishermen are fine. I personally no longer have a desire to watch the animal die or suffer. I prefer boating for relaxation rather than sport at this point. But the lessons of fishing stuck with me.

What is the difference between the guys from my hood and the professional fisherman? That’s the difference between UX Design and UX Strategy. Design without a larger, well-researched, and constructed strategy

Design is always strategic. If it fails to be strategic it isn’t “designing,” it’s doodling or tinkering. Now, doodling and tinkering can often lead to strategic insights. The same way dropping a line in the water with different kinds of bait can help you figure out where the fish are. I’m often asked what it means when people are called a UX Strategist. For many people, including recruiters and hiring managers, when they envision UX, they imagine UI Design. There can be a lot of work — -and dare I say strategic design — that goes into making sure that what is designed hits targets isn’t immediately apparent. In some places, "Strategists" are juniors being deployed as generalists. In others, they are the most senior designers (I favor this definition.) However, all design is strategic. The question is, do you deploy a conscious or intentional strategy or an intuitive and maybe, to some degree, a random one?