“UX… YOU KEEP USING THAT WORD,I DO NOT THINK IT MEANS… WHAT YOU THINK IT MEANS.”
A cautionary tale for recognizing what you and your business really want out of
UX, Customer Experience, Customer Journey and Design Thinking.
About every 4–5 years a new word or phrase enters the vernacular of business. It’s rarely an entirely new idea or practice, but it finds new life with potential for broader application.
You know what I’m talking about. Many bright and shiny management philosophies, technology tools and processes have climbed the hype-cycle in the not-so-distant past. On the upside we gravitate to these things because they make sense, show promise in helping us adapt to an evolving business world. On the downside they tend to get objectified as cure-alls, hyped to the point of confusion, where people begin to rush to apply too quickly.
Today we find ourselves in a business cycle where Design Thinking (and tools of human-centered design — UX, CX, Experience Design and Customer Journey) are rising again in the business vernacular of the moment. This isn’t surprising.
Why? Because technology has disrupted organizations and markets so much that these long-considered design tools make sense when organizations recognize the need to manage their business on multiple levels as an experience not just a series of outputs. More and more, leaders and change-makers are looking for tested tools to act systemically and operate more effectively. Everyone must pivot towards a focus on customer experience and value in order to achieve growth. This is not easy, it’s a very difficult point of transition.
Time will tell how far they human-centered design point-of-view will enter the mainstream of business. But as we see it rise in profile again, here is a caveat for practitioners and new adopters. The tools and frameworks of UX, CX, experience and journey work at many levels. They can be applied to many parts of an organization. Not everyone puts these tools and processes in play the same way for the same types of outcomes.
So as your organization works to deploy design principles to solve business challenges, don’t get ahead of yourself. Don’t let FOMO (fear-of-missing-out) get the best of you.
First think rigorously about the problem you are trying to solve:
What is the most important problem I need to solve for my organization?
Am I working towards a future upstream destination for the business? To generate new opportunities for growth? To manage towards an ideal future state of your business that is centered on customers?
Or does business demand that Iwork towards downstream goals first? To execute iterative product and service advancements to better your current operations? To better align with current customer interactions and transactions now?
Don’t stop there, consider how (or with whom) you plan to operationalize the process:
What are the best (new and tested) approaches to help me get to the answers I seek? What is each built to do?
In what combinations should I use these tools with other existing knowledge or processes to solve this problem? How will they be deployed?
How well are my people or my partners equipped to apply this approach?
What is the working group’s definition of this method? Do we all expect to use it on similar terms and in a shared context?
The trap in all this is starting with a rush to market mentality…
“Hello, My name is (well intentioned innovator), we must do (popular things) now… or prepare to die.”
With a little extra consideration and evaluation, you’ll be in a better position to integrate new ideas and process for purposeful innovation. And whatever problem you tackle, recognize that you also have the potential to spark a broader cultural shift. You might just change your operating culture in a way that could lead to bigger successes upstream.
Andy Hunter is a Strategist, Client Engagement Lead and Innovation Consultant in Austin, Texas who has been using Customer Experience and Customer Journey Frameworks for over 10 years to tackle business, innovation and brand challenges.
(He also likes to inject random pop culture references into serious business conversations to lighten the mood.)