In psychology, we call it the bandwagon effect or herd mentality: it’s quite natural to want to fit in and conform with the norm. But it’s also the panic mode — not wanting to lose against the competition.

The downside? These decisions are often made under high pressure, with little evidence or understanding of what the real problem is. In this case, a lot of budget and time were invested with no real benefit. The team wasn’t clear on what exactly they wanted to solve — so they focused on some obvious feature ideas that weren’t really beneficial to the customer. And, as a result, they didn’t have any meaningful business impact either.

It’s a familiar story. When I was working in-house, this was one of my biggest frustrations: product decisions were often driven top-down, with little evidence. Even though we had insights from customer research pointing in the opposite direction, we had little influence.

But it doesn’t take much to get it right — it’s mostly about communication and alignment across departments. It’s about proper Problem Framing. Let’s dive in.

What is Problem Framing?

This article from Mural describes it well:

Problem framing is a process for analyzing, understanding, and ultimately defining a problem or challenge in order to develop an effective solution.

Problem framing is more than just stating a problem or issue like: “Everybody uses ChatGPT — our customers will expect us to have AI integrations too.”

It’s about understanding:

• the (market) landscape
• the user needs
• the business goals
• and the root causes

In short: it’s about gaining clarity before jumping into execution.

Why is Problem Framing Relevant?

Without a clear understanding of the problem, you risk running in the wrong direction. As mentioned above, lots of effort, budget, and time might be invested for no real outcome.

But it’s not just resources you might lose — it’s also team motivation. Pouring your heart into work that doesn’t make a dent can be deeply frustrating. Over time, it affects morale, buy-in, and retention.

And to be clear: I’m not saying problem framing is a magic wand that turns every decision into a success. Especially with innovation, there will be failures. But at least, let it be a failure we chose together — based on what we knew and believed at the time.

By bringing people together and sharing knowledge around:

• What are we solving?
• For whom?
• Why does it matter?

you will be able to reduce the risk of solving the wrong problem, you will gain more buy-in, and you can make more informed decisions.

Examples for Solving the Wrong Problem

Here are some common examples I come across over and over. The shared pattern: a problem is stated at surface level and usually focused on a single element — without looking deeper or understanding root causes and big-picture goals.

“We need to modernize our website”

Yes, there are a lot of websites that look “outdated.” And it’s a fair wish to want to look more “modern.” But it shouldn’t stop there.

When we talk about a look, we want to express something with it, we want to be perceived in a certain way. When you are thinking about a new facelift, ask yourself:

• What does our brand stand for?
• How do we want to be perceived?
• How does our website currently express our brand?
• What’s the first impression we want our customers to have about us?

“Competitor X has this feature, we need it too.”

The story I started with at the top. It’s a common one. And also valid: we need to stay competitive. And yes, there are trends and technical innovations we need to adapt to keep moving.

But don’t do it blindly. Don’t do it “just because.” Instead ask:

• What opportunities does this new feature/technology/trend offer?
• Looking at examples that are already out there: what is working and what is not working?
• What are OUR customers struggling with the most?
• How will this feature help our customers (and how relevant is it)?

“Let’s fix the bounce rate”

Using metrics is great. Numbers can be powerful — but we need to use them with a grain of salt.

A number by itself isn’t telling you much. You have x amount of daily visitors, your bounce rate is y — is this a lot or a little?

Numbers become meaningful when we add comparison: is the bounce rate on this page much higher (or lower) than on other pages?

And even then: a number will only tell you the WHAT. But not the WHY.

Even if you have a page with a super high bounce rate, this could actually be a good thing. If you answer the question a user was looking for: boom — they came in, found what they needed, and left. Happy. (Think blog posts, recipes, webinar sign-ups, contact forms.)

But it could also be the case that a user didn’t find what they wanted, your content didn’t meet their expectations, and they left. Unhappy.

Before you can “fix the bounce rate,” you need to be aware of the actual problem:

• What do we want our users to do on our site/on this page?
• Why are people leaving — do they actually have a problem?
• Where do people spend most vs. least time on our site?
• What would be our ideal “user flow” for our site? And how does it look today?

“Let’s improve SEO”

Similar to the bounce rate problem. Of course, we want to be found. Everyone is competing for the top ranks.

But in order to improve “findability,” you need to understand your customer’s search behaviour. Do you?

It starts with basic questions like:

• Who is our target audience?
• What are their biggest challenges? What do they need help with?
• What are they looking for (what keywords do they use)?
• How are they searching (ChatGPT is changing our typical Google ranking mindset drastically)?
• Where do people currently enter our site mostly from?
• How much organic vs. referral traffic do we get?

“We just need better content”

Or: we need to clean up/update our content. It’s like household work: we need to clean up now and then to make room for new items. Another valid requirement. But do you actually know what’s working and what’s not?

You can look at numbers again — and they will tell you which part of your site is visited most often, how much time someone spends on it… But it won’t tell you what a user is actually thinking about your content: is it useful? Will they talk about you and recommend your content to others?

Ask:

• How do we measure “successful content”?
• What content needs to be removed vs. updated vs. added?
• Are we providing useful content for our customers?
• What content works best, what content isn’t working?
• Do our users find the content?
• What do we want our users to do with the content?

How to Get Started with Problem Framing

Most problem framing issues happen because the problem is either too vague or overly focused on a specific area — without understanding the broader context.

Here’s a more helpful way to approach it:

Step 1: State the current problem

Start with how the issue is currently being described.

Example: “Our website is outdated.”

This gives you a jumping-off point. But it’s only the start.

Step 2: Look at the problem from two angles

Now dive deeper into the problem by looking at two perspectives:

From the customer’s perspective:

• What is the user struggling with?
• What impression are they getting?
• What are the consequences of this problem?

Example: “Customers get the wrong impression about our brand. They think of us as old-school and not up to date. They don’t expect us to offer innovative services.”

From the business perspective:

• What impact does this problem have?
• What data supports it?

Example: “We’re losing leads. We don’t compare well with competitors.”

Step 3: Define the gap between current and ideal

Clarify what’s wrong today, and what you want instead.

Example: Current: “Our design is dark, feels bureaucratic and outdated.” Ideal: “We want to be perceived as innovative, modern, and ahead of the curve.”

Step 4: Craft a meaningful problem statement

Now that you’ve unpacked the issue, rewrite the problem statement.

Example: Instead of: “We need to modernize our website,” try: “Our brand is not perceived as innovative or up-to-date, which hurts our competitive edge.”

This is now a business problem you can actually do something about. And now — only now — you can start thinking about possible solutions.

Step 5: Brainstorm solutions and prioritize

As you can see in the example above: the solution is actually much more than a visual redesign. It’s about creating a full brand experience.

That might include:

• Creating more trend-focused content
• Offering webinars and thought leadership pieces
• Including better brand storytelling during sales conversations
• Sending out email updates on new features and product development
• Showing presence at innovation-focused events and conferences

By framing the problem properly, you’re not just “modernizing a website.” You’re making sure that you are investing time and budget to gain real outcome.

Helpful Tools & Methods for Teams

Problem framing is about getting an alignment within a team — and sometimes across teams. You’re best approach will be to bring a variety of people together to create alignment. It doesn’t have to be a full-day workshop (even though this would be helpful if you are REALLY unclear about business goals and user needs).

Here are some tools I use in meetings and working sessions.

🧭 Value Proposition Map

A great and simple tool that helps you to define the actual value of your product or service offering by focusing on what your customer actually needs. It helps break down:

• Customer jobs, pains, and gains
• Your product’s pain relievers and gain creators

✅ Helps teams move away from internal assumptions and get clearer on external value.

Further resources:

The Value Proposition Canvas (by the Interaction Design Foundation)

Value Proposition Design Workshop (by Divergent Thinking Design)

🐟 Fishbone Diagram (Root Cause Analysis)

A fishbone diagram, or cause-and-effect diagram, is helpful when you’re stuck in symptom mode (“conversion is down!”), but you need to dig deeper.

• Start with the observed problem
• Define categories for potential causes (content, process, trends, competition, usability, people…)
• For each category, brainstorm specific causes that might contribute to your problem.
• Review all your ideas and identify the most impactful root causes.

✅ Helps teams step back and spot the real contributing factors.

Further resources:

Video about fishbone exercise (by Miro)

Fishbone analysis and templates (by Sessionlab)

🧠 Who-What-Why-Where Prompt

If you want to look at your problem from different angles, the 5 W Questions (+ 1 H) are a simple but powerful prompt for quick alignment:

• Who has the problem?
• What is the impact?
• Why does it matter (business + customer)?
• Where does this show up in the experience?
• How might we solve it?

✅ Use it in meetings, Slack threads, or anywhere alignment starts to fray.

Further Resources:

Problem Framing Playbook (by Atlassian)

5 W’s Problem Framing (by Design Ace)

📋 Problem Framing Workshop (60–90 minutes)

If you know you’ll have to manage bigger discussions or if there is a lot of unclarity, you might want to plan for a longer workshop session. A workshop will give you the time to:

• Share existing knowledge
• Map assumptions
• Align on business and user needs
• Draft a shared problem statement

✅ Especially useful before diving into product ideas, sprint planning, or prioritization sessions.

Further resources and templates:

Problem framing template by Mural

Problem framing workshop by Designsprint Academy

More important than the tool is the habit: make space to reflect, ask questions, and challenge assumptions before jumping into solutions.

Kung-Fu Moves: How to Overcome Push-Backs

Even with the best intentions, you’ll find yourself in situations where a team or stakeholder is rushing into solutions or stuck in old patterns. These are your “in-the-moment” moments — where a well-placed question or reframing move can shift the conversation without derailing momentum.

Here are a few common situations — and how you can respond:

🥷 “We don’t have time. We just need to deliver something.”

Try this:

“Totally fair. But let’s spend 10 minutes clarifying what problem we’re solving — just so we’re not running full-speed in the wrong direction. Worst case? We lose 10 minutes. Best case? We save weeks.”

✅ Bring in a quick Who-What-Why check here. Fast, low friction.

🥋 “This is what my boss told me to do.”

Try this:

“Let’s take that idea and reverse-engineer the original goal. What’s the business outcome behind the request? Maybe we can frame it in a way that’s even more effective.”

✅ Use a “problem tree” to show how this solution connects (or doesn’t) to the deeper issue.

🧘 “We already know what the problem is.”

Try this:

“Great — let’s each write it down in one sentence and compare. If we’re all saying the same thing, we’re golden. If not, we might uncover something useful.”

✅ This mini exercise reveals misalignment fast — no long meeting needed.

🧱 “This is how we always did it.”

Try this:

“That makes sense. But let’s check if the context or user expectations have changed. Even small shifts can make old solutions less effective.”

✅ Bring in quick data or a recent user quote. That often breaks the status quo mindset.

These moments aren’t about being confrontational — they’re about planting a seed of doubt (in the best way). You’re allowing your team to pause, question, and improve — even under pressure.

That’s what problem framing in action looks like.

Over to You: One Quick Step

Before you jump into your next project — pause.

🎯 Think about one recent problem your team tackled.

• What was the impact on the business?
• What was the impact on your customers?
• Did everyone agree on what the actual problem was?

Even this quick reflection can reveal where better framing would’ve helped — or where to sharpen things next time.

Key Takeaways

• Problem framing is not a UX thing — it’s a strategic decision-making skill.
• Teams often waste time solving the wrong thing because they jump into tactics too fast.
• Good framing connects customer needs, business goals, and behavior change.
• You don’t need a full workshop. A few simple prompts can create better alignment.
• In the moment, use mini “reframes” to slow down and refocus your team.

If you want help turning this into a regular habit in your org — reach out. I’d love to support your team in solving the right problems.

I’ve worked with dozens of teams — marketing leads, product owners, executive stakeholders — who were ready to redesign their website.

And every time, the story starts the same way:

“The site feels outdated.”

“We need better navigation.”

“We’re changing our CMS.”

These are valid triggers. But too often, they become the entire focus.

The problem? Most redesigns are based on assumptions, not clarity. They address symptoms — poor SEO, clunky UX, dated visuals — without ever identifying the root cause.

That’s why so many website redesigns fail before they even begin.

In this article, I’ll walk you through the most common mistakes I see when organisations jump into redesign mode too quickly — and how a clear, strategic discovery process can save you time, money, and internal confusion down the line.

Whether you’re updating your digital presence or starting fresh, here’s what to fix before you open a design file.

What I see Going Wrong in Website Redesigns (and How to Fix It Early)

Over the years, I’ve noticed a pattern.

Teams often kick off a redesign with urgency and good intent. But somewhere along the way, the project starts drifting. Scope gets fuzzy. Decisions slow down. People disagree on priorities.

And by the time they launch?

They’ve spent a significant budget — and still feel like something’s missing.

Here are the three most common traps I see — and the steps I take to help teams avoid them.

🎯 1. No Clear Link Between the Website and Business Goals

This is the big one.

Teams say things like:

• “We want to improve conversion.”
• “We need a better user experience.”
• “It should reflect our brand.”

All true. But often too vague to be useful.

There’s no shared understanding of how the website actually supports business outcomes. No clear answer to:

What do we want this website to do for us — and how will we know if it’s working?

What I do:

✅ Stakeholder Interviews: I start to collect goals, expectations, and definitions of success from across the organization. It’s surprising how differently teams define success — and how rarely they’ve heard each other say it out loud.

✅ Success Metrics: Then, I help teams align on measurements for success, not just quantifiable KPIs, but also qualitative checkpoints. Things like:

• Monthly feedback from sales and support
• Micro-surveys for visitors
• Lead quality, not just lead volume

📌 Tip: Ask yourself, “How will we know this redesign worked — six months after launch?” If you can’t answer that clearly, it’s time to pause and align.

🧍‍♂️2. Unclear or Overgeneralized Audience Understanding

Most teams think they know their audience.

There might even be personas on file.

But often, they’re too abstract or role-based: “CMO,” “Technical Buyer,” “Busy Professional.”

They don’t tell you what people are trying to do, what frustrates them, or what kind of content helps them move forward.

So the redesign ends up being built for a fictional “everyone,” and serves no one well.

What I do:

✅ Assumptive persona workshops: I facilitate workshops to collect existing customer knowledge, with people from support, sales, and marketing. This surfaces existing knowledge and gaps.

✅ User research: This step could involve a variety of research methods. I usually start with 1:1 interviews, which are by far the most valuable at this stage. They reveal emotional blockers, motivations, and decision-making behaviour — things surveys simply can’t touch. After that, we might follow up with broader, more scalable research (quant surveys, usability testing, heatmaps) to validate themes.

You don’t need a massive study — you need the right kind of depth.

✅ Customer journeys: Mapping out the customer touchpoints across the end-to-end experience, not just for the website, reveals where the website fits, and what people actually need from it. This is where we connect the dots. Too often, teams zoom in on features — like a checkout flow or homepage banner. But the real opportunities emerge when we zoom out. Customer journey mapping helps us understand the full experience — before, during, and after someone lands on your website. It answers critical questions like:

• How do people find you in the first place?
• What are they trying to accomplish — and what gets in their way?
• Where does the website fit into their bigger decision-making process?
• Sometimes, the website isn’t even the root issue. It’s just the place where the symptoms show up.

📌 Tip: Focus less on demographics and job titles. Instead, ask: What’s going on in their world when they land on our site?

📚 3. Content That Reflects Internal Thinking — Not Customer Needs

Most of us write content based on what we know — not what our users need.

That’s not because people don’t care — it’s because of cognitive biases.

We all carry our own mental models and assumptions. We think we’re being clear, but we’re speaking our internal language.

And over time, the website becomes a patchwork of updates from different teams, with no consistent voice or structure.

The result?

A cluttered, jargon-heavy experience that’s hard to navigate — even for your own employees.

What I do:

✅ Content audit: This is not glamorous work. It’s like cleaning out a very messy closet. But it’s worth it. Because it shows you what’s working, what’s not, and where you have real content gaps.

• You’ll find things you forgot you had
• You’ll question why some things were ever written
• And you’ll probably want to throw half of it away

✅ Usability testing: I use testing that focuses not just on clicks — but on content understanding:

• Can users find answers quickly?
• Do they understand the language?
• Does the content build trust — or confusion?

✅ Card sorting is another user testing method that helps restructure content based on how your users think — not your internal team’s org chart.

📌 Tip: Choose 3–5 high-traffic pages and test them with real users. Ask what they expected to find — and whether they did. You’ll be surprised what comes up.

What All These Mistakes Have in Common

All of these mistakes stem from the same root cause:

Redesigning before you have clarity.

It’s tempting to jump in. Redesigns feel like progress.

But if you don’t start with strategic clarity, you risk fixing the wrong things — or fixing surface-level problems without addressing the core.

A better design won’t save a broken structure.

And a new CMS won’t fix unclear messaging.

That’s why I always recommend slowing down just enough to ask better questions. The clarity you create at the start will make every decision that follows faster, smarter, and easier to align around.

A Real-Life Example: Assumptive vs Actual Behaviour

Let me share a quick story that still sticks with me — because it shows how much clarity you can gain from listening, not guessing.

A client came to me with a common problem:

“People are dropping off during checkout. We think the flow needs redesigning.”

This was a small, purpose-driven eCommerce brand selling beautiful handmade soaps and skincare products.

The team had already done a lot:

• They’d pulled analytics.
• Compared competitor checkout flows.
• Tested a sleeker, single-page design to replace their old multi-step form.

But the drop-offs didn’t budge.

So they called me.

And the first thing I asked was,

“What do your customers say about the checkout?”

There was a pause.

They’d sent out surveys — but nothing came back that explained what was going on.

So, we ran a few customer interviews. Just five to start.

And within days, we uncovered two major insights that changed everything:

🧴 1. The Cart Wasn’t Just a Cart

Turns out, many customers were using the shopping cart as a wishlist. They weren’t ready to buy yet.

Some were saving items they loved for a future treat. Others were building gift bundles they wanted to revisit later.

One customer said,

“Oh, I add stuff to the cart when I see something new — but I don’t always check out. It’s more like a list for next time.”

Which explained a big chunk of the so-called “abandonment.”

🌡️ 2. Warm Weather = Melted Products

Another group of customers — especially those in warmer regions — were hesitant to order online. Why?

“I love the body butter, but it’s melted in the mail before. Now I just wait until I’m near one of your stores.”

They were using the cart as a reminder, not a purchase step. The issue wasn’t friction in the form. It was trust in the shipping experience.

🛠️ What We Did Instead

Here’s what we didn’t do: Another checkout redesign.

Instead, we focused on real solutions:

• Added a proper wishlist feature
• Updated product descriptions to include texture and scent details
• Improved packaging for heat-sensitive products

None of these things touched the checkout flow.

And we didn’t start changing all at once. But within a few weeks of implementing the first batch of changes?

Checkout drop-offs went down significantly.

🧠 The Bigger Lesson

If we’d stayed focused on the “checkout problem,” we would’ve missed the real opportunities.

This project reminded me (again) that the clearest answers usually come from asking better questions — and talking to the humans behind the data.

Analytics show you the “what.”

Research tells you the “why.”

And when you’re redesigning a website, it’s the “why” that makes all the difference.

What this means for you

If you’re thinking about website improvements or getting ready for a redesign — this is your moment to pause.

Ask yourself — and your team:

• What are we actually trying to achieve with this website?
• What’s working well right now? (And what’s just… not?)
• Who are we designing for — and what do they need at each step of their journey?
• Where are we assuming we know something… but haven’t actually validated it?
• What does success look like — for us, for the business, for our users?

These questions aren’t just a thought exercise.

They’re the foundation for a strategic website redesign that actually moves your business forward.

✍️ Try This:

Take 30 minutes this week.

• Grab a notebook, or open a doc.
• Answer the five questions above — just from your perspective.
• Then share them with a few teammates. Ask for their version.

You’ll quickly see where things align… and where they don’t.

• From there, build a list of pain points, challenges, and gaps.
• Prioritize them using an impact–effort matrix (yes, the classic still works).

And only then — when you’ve got the bigger picture — start shaping your redesign roadmap.

Why it’s helpful

You’ll avoid costly missteps.

You’ll stop redesigning the same things again and again.

You’ll move faster later — because you’ve slowed down now.

And most importantly?

You’ll end up with a website that’s not just prettier — but sharper, clearer, and more useful for everyone who visits.

Further Resources

If you’re not sure where to begin, I’ve got a couple of tools to help you pause, reflect, and plan smarter:

🔗 Website Redesign Readiness Checklist

30 questions to help you uncover what’s really going on behind your website issues — before you spend a single dollar on design.

Use it with your team, or just on your own as a sanity check. Get the checklist here.

🔗 UX Clarity Sprint

If your team is already in motion — or stuck mid-project — and you need a quick, expert-led reset, this is for you.

In just a few sessions, we map the current experience, align internal goals, uncover user needs, and surface hidden gaps.

No fluff. No waiting months for insight. Just focused clarity that saves you time and budget down the line.

Learn more about the UX Clarity Sprint.

FAQs About Website Redesign Planning

1. What’s the biggest mistake companies make when redesigning their website?

Jumping into design before defining the real problem. Without clarity, redesigns are often based on assumptions, leading to wasted time and resources.

2. Do I need to hire a UX expert before a redesign?

Not necessarily. But bringing in someone who can guide stakeholder alignment, user research, and strategic prioritization can prevent expensive missteps and get better results faster.

3. What if we’ve already started the redesign — can we still pause and reframe?

Absolutely. It’s better to reset mid-project than keep pushing forward without alignment. A strategic pause now can save you months of rework later.

Over to you

Pick one of the tips or exercises in this article that you want to try within the next 30 days to gain more clarity around customer needs, business needs and website requirements.

Do you want to grow your impact as a UX designer? Then, it might be time to enhance your skills in strategic design thinking.

When I started in the field of human-computer interaction design (which later turned into UX), I was driven mainly by the goal of making technology simpler for the user. I wanted to make an impact and help to make technology accessible and usable for a broader audience.

Soon, I had to learn that there is more than one side to a problem and a solution. There are more than just user needs. There are technical requirements, and there are business goals.

You are probably familiar with this UX Venn diagram, which defines UX as the intersection of user needs, business objectives and technical requirements.

While I knew about it, I didn’t understand what to do with it — until I hit rejections of my “UX solutions” (because of business or tech constraints). This is when I realized that UX is not just about problem-solving; it’s about multi-dimensional problem-solving.

For a long time, UX designers were missionaries who tried to promote the “trade” of product design: not just business goals and tech were relevant, but also the customer (or user).

And it seemed we made progress: UX became increasingly popular within organizations. But instead of making user needs an equal part of the equation (business + technology + users = product with great UX), it turned into a checklist item. Businesses wanted shortcuts to adding some “UX spice” to their product design: give me some best practices. UX design started to have less and less to do with “users.” The role of a UX designer turned more into an “experience design expert” and soon into a “visual design problem solver.”

This is where we got stuck in our mission: we stopped doing tactical UX design; we solved immediate design problems. Customers get lost during checkout — let’s fix the UX. Users don’t find their way around — let’s improve the IA and navigation.

Solving design problems is relevant. But to solve a problem, you need to understand it—not just from a user perspective but from all three angles of our Venn diagram. You need to apply strategic thinking to define the sweet spot, the best solution for all three areas (users, technology, and business).

To increase your impact as a UX designer and move beyond execution, you need to get into strategic UX design.

Tactical vs. Strategic UX Design: Understand the Difference

Let’s look at the difference between tactical and strategic UX design.

You are tactical in your design anytime you are working on a specific design problem. The problem can be simple or complex, requiring quick fixes or building a completely new solution or feature. But all your design effort is functionality-focused.

Signs You’re Stuck in a Tactical Role

• The product (or outcome) has already been predefined
• You’re focused on building the product right
• Research tasks are mostly focused on usability
• Your work is very project-based, with a discrete focus

Results of Tactical UX Thinking

• Lack of involvement in decision-making processes.
• Being brought in late to projects.
• Limited influence on product direction.

Strategic design happens when you go beyond solving a single problem. Instead of diving into a specific project, you start by looking at the big picture:

• What is the current situation (of our product, our customers, our business)? What is not working well?
• What do we want to accomplish by solving it (for our customers and business)? What will be improved?
• What do we need to get there? What do we know? What do we need to understand better?

Signs You’re Using Strategic UX Thinking:

• You are focused on your users’ overall experience, independent of the product
• You accumulate insights that help with business decisions, not just a specific product
• You support teams across the company, not just the product design team

Benefits of Strategic UX Thinking

• Greater impact on product success.
• Enhanced career growth and recognition.
• Increased job satisfaction and professional fulfillment.

How to Build Strategic Skill Sets

Now that you understand the difference between strategic and tactical UX design, how do you move from one stage to another?

Here are some areas to work on to improve your strategic thinking skills.

Start Asking “Why” Before “How”

In your next project, start by asking questions before diving into solutions.

• Why are we solving this problem?
• What are the business and user goals behind this project?

🫵 Take Action: Practice this in your next project by writing down the problem statement and the desired outcome before sketching any solutions. This habit will gradually shift your focus from execution to strategy.

Conduct Regular Stakeholder Interviews

Develop a habit of interviewing stakeholders to understand their goals, challenges, and expectations. This will help you align your design work with broader business objectives.

Your stakeholder is anyone who will be affected by your project and (or) has input for your project. If you’re redesigning a checkout process, interview the marketing team to understand their goals (e.g., reducing cart abandonment), the customer support team for common user pain points, and the sales team for insights on customer objections.

🫵 Take Action: Schedule regular (i.e. monthly) check-ins with key stakeholders to discuss ongoing projects, gather feedback, and understand their priorities. Document these conversations to track how your work is contributing to strategic goals.

Use Strategic Frameworks to Guide Your Design

Incorporate strategic frameworks like SWOT analysis or the Business Model Canvas into your design process. These tools can help you think about the broader context of your work.

• A SWOT analysis can help you to evaluate the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats related to your design problem. It’s a good tool to use in combination with a competitive analysis.
• A Business Model Canvas is a great way to understand business objectives and the bigger picture of the project you will be working on.

🫵 Take Action: Pick a current project and create a Business Model Canvas. Map out how your design impacts critical elements such as customer segments, value propositions, and revenue streams. This exercise will train you to consider the business implications of your designs.

Prioritize User and Business Outcomes Over Deliverables

To move from tactical to strategic thinking, shift your focus from creating deliverables (like wireframes or prototypes) to achieving specific user and business outcomes. Think about ways to measure these outcomes. For example, if you are working on improvements for a landing page, don’t just focus on the visual layout; think about how your design can impact business (e.g., increase the conversion rate) and satisfy users (e.g., find all relevant information).

🫵 Take Action: For your next project, define the desired user and business outcomes at the start. Regularly check if your design decisions are contributing to these outcomes. Reflect on this at the end of the project to assess your strategic impact.

Engage in Cross-Functional Collaboration

To see the bigger picture (to think strategically), you need to expand your knowledge. This is best done by learning from each other. Start actively collaborating with teams and people outside of design, such as marketing, product management, and sales. Invite them to a customer journey map workshop or a user research insights share.

🫵 Take Action: Organize a cross-functional meeting or workshop to collect inputs on your design activities. Consider facilitating a customer journey map workshop or a design thinking workshop with a cross-functional team to solve a business problem collaboratively.

If you want to learn more about UX workshops, check out my introduction course for UX workshop facilitation.

Summary

Embracing strategic thinking as a UX designer offers significant benefits over a purely tactical approach. By adopting a strategic mindset, you elevate your role from a task executor to a key decision-maker who shapes the future of the product.

Begin with simple exercises and behaviour changes, such as asking “why” before diving into solutions or incorporating strategic frameworks into your design process. These small shifts will gradually build your strategic skillset, helping you make a more significant impact on your career and your organization's success.

Like cross-functional teams, multicultural teams are a huge driving force for innovative thinking. Bringing different perspectives together allows us to learn from each other and to learn more about ourselves.

I recently read The Culture Map by Erin Meyer. I highly recommend her book to everyone who works in an intercultural environment. I could relate to many of the stories in this book: I have lived in three different cultures (Germany, Switzerland, and Canada), one of which is a cultural melting pot (Canada is a mixed bag of so many nationalities to me).

Erin Meyer, a professor at a French business school, identified 8 behavioural patterns that describe cultural differences. Of course, these are simplifications like all patterns, models, and behavioural concepts. We are not just the result of our cultural background. But Erin’s collection contains some great insights that help us describe and, therefore, improve intercultural communication.

In this article, I share my key takeaways and their application to teamwork in the design process.

Communication style: implicit vs explicit

Communication is one of the key factors for good teamwork. How do we ensure that the messages we send are being understood correctly?

Some cultures express their messaging very explicitly (low-context cultures). They aim to be as clear and simple as possible. I quite enjoyed this when I moved from Germany to Canada: Whenever a complex topic is shared (in books or in a presentation), the structure of the message is always aimed at being easily understood, following the formula: ”Tell them what you are going to tell them, then tell them, then tell them what you’ve told them.”

Other cultures are less explicit and require the receiver to read between the lines (high-context cultures). For me personally, this often shows in understanding sarcasm or each other’s sense of humor. The less “context-focused” we are, the easier it will be for us to miss certain cues to understand a message correctly.

📏 Communication style: the cultural scale

Cultures with a highly explicit communication style are the US, Australia, Canada and the Netherlands.

Cultures with a highly implicit communication style are Japan, Korea, Indonesia and China.

It’s important to note that when we interact with different cultures, it is not about the absolute position but the relative position to each other. While the German culture is very explicit — especially when contrasted with an Asian culture, where communication highly depends on contextual cues — compared to North America, we are more subtle and do less to ensure that our message comes across clearly.

👉 ️Communication style: tactics for teamwork

If you have worked in a multicultural context, you have encountered differences in communication. Sometimes, they are subtle, and other times, they can have a bigger impact.

What I find generally helpful when working with new teams:

• Set communication and collaboration rules at the beginning of a workshop or longer working session (e.g., raise your hand before you speak).
• Start with a round of introduction, including personal communication practices (i.e. as a night owl, I am less communicative in the morning).

We are often unaware of our differences — because they seem so natural to us (doesn’t everyone think that way?). When communication challenges are happening during teamwork, I use one of the following facilitation techniques:

• active listening + validating: by repeating a message and seeking validation, you can support the team in gaining clarity
• making space: inviting participants with an implicit communication style to share more about their thoughts
• meta-discussion: pausing the teamwork and addressing communication challenges you’ve observed to allow the team to acknowledge and address the situation.

Providing feedback: direct vs indirect

There is a difference between being very explicit in one’s messaging and how we provide feedback or criticism. While feedback should be constructive, there is a range between a direct and diplomatic approach.

Cultures that prefer direct feedback share their criticism bluntly and honestly without softening it with positive messages.

Cultures that prefer an indirect feedback style share their evaluation softly and diplomatically, often wrapped in positive messages.

📏 Providing feedback: the cultural scale

Cultures that highly prefer a direct feedback style are Israel, the Netherlands, Russia, and Germany.

Cultures that prefer an indirect approach are Japan, Thailand, Indonesia, and Arabia.

This is also something I only realized once I moved abroad: the differences in giving feedback.

In Germany, I was very much used to receiving feedback directly, and I think of it as the most efficient way of communicating with each other (get to the point, forget the dance, tell me what you think). In Canada, I learned a different style: combining negative messages with positive ones, using the sandwich tactic.

I do have to say: while I like the “easing into sharing negative feedback,” there is often too much positivity and a lack of “real talk” for me. I prefer to grow and find myself growing best when I get direct feedback.

Notice that a general “communication style” differs from a “feedback style”. You can have a culture with an explicit but indirect feedback style (like Canada) or the opposite (direct feedback but implicit communication — like Russia).

👉 ️ Providing feedback: tactics for teamwork

Giving feedback is key in the design process. To create an open environment, I also find it helpful (just as for the communication style tips above) to start with some ground rules to set up a common feedback culture.

Regarding feedback, I often use the sandwich tactic: start with something positive, share something to improve, and end with something positive.

For longer teamwork sessions in a multicultural environment, you can also spend some time at the beginning to raise awareness of our communication differences:

• start your session by sharing some funny stories about different communication styles to remind everyone not to take anything personal
• start with an icebreaker exercise: share feedback scenarios and have people discuss the situation in small groups

Persuasion: application-first vs principle-first

The way how we present, trying to get a message across and convince someone, can vary between an “application first” or a “principle first” approach.

Cultures that prefer a principle-first approach tend to start a presentation with a theoretical concept, the methods and principles that lead to a certain conclusion, before they share specific recommendations or a practical scenario.

Cultures with an application-first approach tend to present the opposite way: They start with a practical scenario that everyone can relate to (and often even skip the theoretical concept behind it).

📏 Persuasion: the cultural scale

Cultures that prefer the principle-first approach include France, Italy, Spain, and Russia.

Cultures with an application-f principle-first approachirst approach include the US, Canada, Australia and the UK.

I can relate to both approaches. While I enjoy the aspect of storytelling (which I think is increasingly important in our days of information overload), I think the best approach depends heavily on the context and the objective.

👉 Persuasion: tactics for teamwork

This is mostly relevant for you as a team leader and facilitator or in your role as a UX designer or researcher when communicating with stakeholders. The best tactics are:

• know your audience
• be aware of the different approaches and select the style you think is most appropriate
• try a mixed approach in a multicultural context

Trust: cognitive vs affective

Like communication, building trust is an important foundation for good teamwork and not an easy task for a facilitator. Erin found two extreme poles when it comes to trust building in groups: cognitive trust (task-based) versus affective trust (relationship-based).

Cognitive trust comes from the head. It is built through work-related activities that provide insights into skills, reliability and accomplishments. Work relationships can be built (but also dropped) quickly.

Affective trust comes from the heart. Trust is built through relationships and activities outside of work, like sharing meals, laughing together, and sharing stories. Work relationships build up much slower, as it takes time to get to know each other.

📏 Trust: the cultural scale

More task-oriented cultures include the US, Netherlands, Denmark and Australia.

More relationship-focused cultures include Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, India and China.

Remember that this scale focuses on business relationships. While I do think that building long-lasting relationships always comes down to “the heart” and takes time, I see the difference in a work environment. In Canada, I find people are faster to collaborate with each other and welcome new people into the team than I am used to from Germany or Switzerland.

This might also be due to the aspect of friendliness. Erin uses the great analogy of peaches and coconuts. A peach culture (like Canada or the US) is often soft and friendly to people they have just met, but it’s hard to form deeper relationships (like in a peach, you will get to the pit quickly after breaking through the soft skin).

A coconut culture (like Germany) is not as open and friendly to strangers, but once you get behind the hard shell, you find the juicy inside and long-lasting relationships.

👉 Trust: tactics for teamwork

As a facilitator, it’s important to consider both dimensions and try to use a mixed approach.

• Trust-building exercises (like icebreakers) can work well for task-based cultures, but make sure to also include non-work-related activities (like drinks afterwards or a coffee break during).
• Give people the opportunity to work closely together by using small group activities.

Discussions: confrontational vs avoiding

Teamwork is all about creating an alignment and sharing thoughts. But how do you manage differences in opinions?

Confrontational cultures view disagreement as positive and fruitful. They embrace different opinions and separate a discussion from the overall relationship.

Cultures that avoid confrontation see disagreement as negative. It destroys a group's harmony and can lead to “losing one’s face.”

📏 Disagreement: the cultural scale

Highly confrontational cultures are Israel, France, Germany and Russia.

Cultures that avoid confrontations include Indonesia, Japan, Thailand and Ghana.

Coming from a more confrontational culture, I personally struggle with this aspect repeatedly here in Canada. Confrontation doesn’t mean being aggressive — but it means being able to have different opinions and give room for argument. In North America, I see a big difference here, even within a country, between the East and the West Coast, with the West Coast being more avoidant of confrontations than the East Coast.

👉 Disagreement: tactics for teamwork

One of the main reasons for teamwork, especially in the design process, is to bring together all these different opinions and perspectives to achieve innovative outcomes.

As a facilitator, I find it important to work with the element of trust here as well:

• Create a safe environment for your group.
• Define ground rules for discussions and feedback.
• Facilitate discussions by either balancing out different opinions or drawing people out to share different aspects (or jump in with a devil’s advocate approach if you are working with a group that avoids confrontation).
• Bring the group to an alignment through voting exercises.

Over to you

As I stated in the beginning, trying to define a culture based on a few-dimensional scale oversimplifies our diversity. However, being aware of these simple concepts can help you better manage complex situations.

In your next meetings and workshops, try to be more aware of the different communication styles you see around you. Before you interpret or judge a message, consider these different elements: how else could you interpret the message? What can you do to improve the communication in your team? And what do you learn about yourself?

Happy growing 😊

A user onboarding experience

We’ve all seen them: onboarding screens, clever carousels when opening an app for the first time, or pop-ups guiding us through a feature jungle when using new software.

I don’t know about you, but I have only seen a handful of useful examples. I rarely read instructions before diving into a tool. I learn by doing and don’t want to get lectures without being able to apply what I learn right away.

Far too often, onboarding experiences seem to be just another checkbox on the “best practice” list. But just because we see a certain pattern repeatedly out there doesn’t mean it is actually useful.

Let’s be smarter and not just copy cats. Here are some tips on when and how to use user onboarding. Before we start, let’s first get on the same page.

What is user onboarding?

There is a lot of information about onboarding out there , but depending on the context, onboarding can mean very different things.

Software companies, especially in the B2B space, will talk a lot about customer onboarding. This is a big-picture view of your customer’s end-to-end experience of a product across different touch points. The goal is to create a strong relationship to keep customer retention.

In this article, I will discuss user onboarding, which can be part of customer onboarding. It focuses on product usage. The goal is to ensure a successful interaction with software and show its value.

User onboarding is the process of guiding new users to find value and successfully use a particular software.

What is the purpose of user onboarding?

Providing a user onboarding process can have multiple benefits:

• It can provide an introduction to your software without lengthy documentation.
• It can support the discoverability of new or unconventional features.
• A successful onboarding experience can generate trust in the brand.
• It can support engagement and help build behavioral patterns.

👉 If you are designing an onboarding experience, think about your objective first.

When do we use onboarding?

While “onboarding” also refers to the first impression a user will get of a product, it can cover a longer period than just the first interaction.

There are three main stages in a user journey where user onboarding can be relevant:

1. User activation: entice users to sign up for a service and start using it
2. User retention: engage users to return and keep using the app
3. User loyalty: keep users satisfied and introduce advanced features

👉 Think about your customer’s journey. At what stage do they need the most encouragement? Start there.

How do we do user onboarding?

Depending on your goals, there are different options to consider. It’s more than just a few screens before a user signs up for your app.

Let’s take a look:

User Activation

If your goal is to get new customers to sign up for your product, you need to show them the value: How is this product making their lives better?

Here are different ways of doing this:

• Product video: quick walkthrough of the main features
• Screenshots: static images to show the main product areas
• Demo version or free trial
• Free version with a limited feature set

Important to consider:

• Show any features you think your user expects to see (the must-haves)
• Include features that differentiate your product from competitors (the delighters)
• Avoid focusing on unimportant features (indifferent or neutrals)
• Also, avoid overexplaining functionality. This is not the time to go deep into “how to use it”; focus on “what you get.”

👉 Be clear about your customer needs and the competitive offers on the market: what are must-have features? What are the differentiators?

📖 Learn more about the KANO model to analyze your product features

User Retention

If your goal is to keep users engaged and encourage frequent use of your product, you need to support a behavioural change and get them excited.

There are lots of ways to accomplish that; here are a few ideas:

• Onboarding tutorial over time: share regular messages with tips on how to use the product
• Tooltips: show in-context tips over time to help a user advance their skill level
• Task list & progress bar: provide steps a user has to do to get familiar with a service
• Resource center with tutorials: offer educational and support content that is accessible to users whenever they want it
• Gamification: provide a form of rewards for frequent usage

Important to consider:

• Put yourself in your users’ shoes to guide them from being a first-time user to an experienced user (what do they need to learn first, second, third)
• Don’t overwhelm your user. Split content into small bites
• Don’t force users to go through educational content and always provide a way out
• Offer frictionless self-service support options

👉 Use a progress map to gain clarity about the steps you want your users to go through from a first-time user to an advanced user: how can you help them to feel successful?

📖 Learn more about UX mapping methods

User Expansion

If your goal is to increase loyalty, you want to ensure high customer satisfaction to build a positive relationship.

Technically, we are not talking about user onboarding anymore — but your onboarding process has an impact on your customer relationship and trust you create.

Some ways to ensure a positive relationship:

• Gather customer feedback to improve the experience continuously
• Collect customer data for more personalized messages and tips (like mini surveys about their roles, knowledge level and objectives)
• Implement loyalty programs and gamification to strengthen relationships.
• Invite users for beta-testing

Important to consider:

• It’s easier to loose trust than to gain it: be transparent and supportive in all of your messages.
• Give your customers the feeling of being heard.
• Keep the focus on providing value and avoid feature creep

👉 Do continuous research to stay up-to-date with your customers’ changing needs, expectations and pain points.

📖 Learn more about strategic UX research and continuous UX research

Example: how not to do it

We all want happy customers. When we don’t get the user engagement we were hoping for and only look at some numeric data, we might quickly y come the conclusion of: “They just don’t get it. Let’s add some user onboarding to help people understand our product.”

This can result in a recent example I experienced as a user.

The context: I made an online order and received an email notification a while later to track my order.

Here is the email notification: Yes, let’s track my package. (Before you scroll further down, take a second to think about what you would expect to see. What information is relevant to you?)

I clicked on the link and was transferred to a webpage that started with an onboarding message. I was surprised at first: all I need is to see where my package is currently and its estimated arrival date. Who needs instructions for that?

And then I took a second to look at the instructions: this sounds like WORK. I had no clue what they were trying to tell me, what numbers I was supposed to clear and extract.

There was no way to close this message, I could only select the “Next” button. Which then offered me a language selection — with the option to translate everything into English — but all of the content is already in English??

Next, I got what seemed to me in the beginning as even more steps and instructions — until I realized that they were just explaining buttons to me (what would I need any of these features for?? I just want to know where my package is).

Then, finally, I get a timeline…and a goodbye message (more clicks and buttons). I click finish…

Then, I got to what I had been interested in all along. But:

• the timeline has changed (the timeline in the previous screen was just an example, not MY timeline)
• there are tons of icons including sad smiley faces and alerts that I have no clue what to do with
• there is ChatGPT information to learn more about the carrier….that’s what I always wanted! (so not)
• a language selector top AND bottom (which one is correct?)
• Copy details, copy link: what’s the difference? Similar to buttons at the top??
• the information that I am REALLY interested in (when will I get my package) is not available and will be very hard to see on this screen.

This to me is a big UX fail for user onboarding.

It seems that most of the onboarding information might have been relevant to a sender but not to a receiver.

— > make sure to provide information to your right audience and user group

The information in the onboarding tutorial was also pretty basic. If you have to explain to your users the basic functionality of your application, you know you did something wrong in your UI design.

— > Design your product with a good usability and affordance. Focus on simplifying before thinking about adding explanations around usage.

Examples: good approaches

There are lots of resources out there with a collection of good user onboarding examples. Some great sources for inspiration are:

Onboarding Study (examples from over 220 SaaS products)

User Onboarding Academy (mix of SaaS tools, apps and platforms)

I will include only a few to give you some ideas and inspiration:

Notion: Welcome message and checklist for first-time users

While users might have a rough understanding of what they can use this product for, there are lots of hidden features, and with such a powerful tool like Notion, it can easily be overwhelming.

Notion provides a welcome screen with video walkthroughs and a task list that helps first-time users get oriented.

This page is always accessible (a user can come back at any time), but it can also be skipped or deleted if the user doesn’t find it useful.

Canva: In-context support messages for advanced users

Canva offers messages if they see their users are doing something new or if there is a hidden feature that a user hasn’t used before. It seems very data-driven and personalized — a great way to provide additional value even for advanced users.

Miro: In-context to self-serve message

Similar to Canva, Miro provides tips whenever they release a new feature or seeing a user interacting with an item for the first time. They also let users know that they have access to a pool of tutorials where they can find tips and support whenever they need it (choosing between different methods of in-app tutorials or videos).

Checklist: Considerations for user onboarding

To ensure that your onboarding solution is valuable and helping you achieve your objectives, consider these questions before you decide on a solution.

For existing products:

Review your current product and its interface:

Are there any parts in our interface that are not easy to understand or we know our users struggle with? → Explore first ways to simplify your UI before adding an onboarding tutorial.

→ Use A/B testing to test different solutions.

Are there any hidden features we want our users to discover?

→ Good options for in-context messages or even notifying customers to get them excited about using your service

Are all of our features valuable?

→ Check user data and do user research to confirm what your users really need. Feature creep can result in dissatisfied customers and ultimately lead to customer churn.

For new products:

Do you know what our users need to get started?

→ Create a process map for your users to define typical questions a user would have throughout their user lifespan (beginner, intermediate, advanced)

→ Focus on the core task that a new user has to do. Don’t overwhelm them.

→ Get them to take action rather than reading a lot of information.

Are you talking to the right audience?

→ Be clear about your audience group and their skill level.

→ If you have more than an audience, decide who you need onboarding support for.

→ Create a persona that includes details about their knowledge and expectations.

→ Don’t try to be everything for everyone and create content for newbies and pros at the same time.

Do you need to provide support for a feature — or for a process?

→ Understanding a feature is not helpful if a user doesn’t understand the process for using this feature. Take Notion as an example: it’s nice to know that I can add tables with different settings — but when would I need these settings, what do I do with it?

→ Be sure that you know your user stories, their end goals and struggles so you can provide the best support

Recap

Before you start with your onboarding solution, make sure you know the following:

1. Onboarding objective: what do we want to accomplish (customer activation vs retention vs loyalty)
2. Personas or clear target audience descriptions (including pain points and motivations)
3. User scenarios (what do our users want to accomplish)
4. Customer data (what do we know our customers struggle with)
5. UI review/ Heuristic evaluation: can we simplify our product before adding more tutorials?

But here’s the thing: no designer is an island. The magic really happens when you collaborate across disciplines. When we bring people with different expertise and skill sets together, something magical can happen: we start to see things differently, we find new ideas, and we expand beyond our own limited creative space.

As designers we are used to working with other creative minds to generate new ideas and critique our designs. But there are other important roles and disciplines we should collaborate with in our product design process.

So, let’s dive into the world of collaboration and explore how connecting with other designers, business stakeholders, marketing teams, engineers, and end-users can elevate your designs from good to unforgettable.

A brief look at the design process

There are many frameworks and representations of the product design process. I don’t want to start to talk about double or triple diamonds, but just provide a rough framework to categorize our collaboration opportunities better.

In a nutshell, we can organize the design process into four main phases:

1. Discovery (what is the current situation)
2. Problem definition (what is the main thing we want to solve)
3. Ideation (what ideas do we have to fix this problem)
4. Iteration (how can we turn our idea into a valuable solution)

Now let’s take a look at different disciplines and when best to work with them.

👩‍🎨 Other designers: teaming up

First things first, let’s talk about your closest allies: other designers. Whether they’re UX, UI, graphic, or interaction designers, there’s a unique strength in this creative unity. Collaborating with fellow designers means you can bounce ideas off each other, tackle design challenges from multiple perspectives, and refine concepts until they shine. It’s like being in a band — each member brings their own instrument to the mix, creating a richer, more harmonious sound.

When to collaborate

problem definition + idea generation

Collaboration methods

👉 Creating team alignment:

• Assumption Mapping
• Persona Workshop
• Empathy Map
• Customer Journey Map

👉 Generating new ideas

• Design Thinking Workshop
• Design Studio
• Project War Room

👨🏻‍💼 Business stakeholders: building bridges

Business stakeholders are the compass that guides the design ship. They have the strategic vision and deep understanding of the business goals. By collaborating closely with them, you can align your design objectives with the company’s direction. This doesn’t just ensure that your designs support the business; it also means that your work is rooted in real-world needs and objectives, making it all the more impactful.

When to collaborate

discovery + problem definition + iteration

Collaboration methods

👉 Discover business goals & needs:

• Stakeholder interviews
• Gap Analysis Workshop
• Collaborative Synthesis (Market Analysis, Customer Pain Points)

👉 Creating team alignment

• Assumption Mapping
• Customer Journey Map

👉 Generating new ideas

• Persona and Value Proposition Workshop
• Design Thinking Workshop

👉 Collecting feedback

• Prototype Testing
• Decision Making Workshop
• Open Gallery

🗣️ Marketing: joining forces

Ah, marketing — the storytellers of the business world. They know the market, the competition, and most importantly, the users. By working hand-in-hand with marketing, you can gain insights into user demographics, preferences, and behaviors. This partnership allows you to tailor your designs to speak directly to the user, crafting experiences that not only attract attention but also resonate on a deeper level.

When to collaborate

discovery + problem definition

Collaboration methods

👉 Discover user needs

• Collect and review existing data as a team
• Collaborative Synthesis (Market Analysis, Customer Pain Points)

👉 Creating team alignment through

• Assumption Mapping
• Customer Journey Map

👨🏼‍💻 Engineers: turning ideas into reality

Engineers are the wizards who turn your designs into functioning products. This collaboration is crucial because, let’s face it, what good is a design if it can’t be built? Working closely with engineers ensures that your designs are technically feasible and that any limitations or challenges are addressed early on. Plus, engineers often have innovative solutions and ideas that can enhance the design in ways you might not have considered.

When to collaborate

ideation + iteration

Collaboration methods

👉 Generating new ideas

• Decision-Making Workshop
• Design Studio

👉 Collecting feedback

• Open Gallery
• Decision-Making Workshop

Learning from End-Users: The Heart of Design

Last but certainly not least, there are the end-users — the reason we all do what we do. Engaging with users throughout the design process is invaluable. It keeps your designs grounded in real user needs and challenges. Feedback from user testing sessions, surveys, and interviews can reveal insights that dramatically shape the direction and effectiveness of your designs. After all, designing for users without including them in the process is like trying to hit a target in the dark.

When to collaborate

discovery + iteration

Collaboration methods

👉 Understanding user needs

• Contextual Inquiry (observation, interview)
• User research

👉 Collecting feedback

• Usability Testing (moderated, unmoderated)
• Surveys

Conclusion: The Symphony of Collaboration

So there you have it. UX and product design are team sports, and every player brings something unique to the game. By embracing collaboration across these different groups, you can create more than just products; you can create experiences that truly make a difference. Remember, the best designs come from understanding and integrating multiple perspectives — whether it’s the aesthetic harmony from designers, strategic insights from business stakeholders, market knowledge from marketing, technical ingenuity from engineers, or invaluable feedback from end-users. So let’s break down those silos and start collaborating. After all, it’s together that we create the magic.

Collaboration enables teams to adapt faster to changing requirements, iterate on design ideas, and ultimately deliver products that resonate with users and drive business success.

This article outlines key methods that UX teams can use to foster collaboration when designing new products.

Workshops

What it is

A workshop is a way to bring people together for an interactive working session. It allows people to discuss and exchange ideas.

When to use

A workshop is a good method if you want to:

• collect ideas
• create team alignment

What to consider

A workshop is being organized and run by a facilitator. Setting up a workshop requires planning time to clarify the outcomes, identify participants and define workshop activities. A workshop can range from 1.5 hours to multiple days.

Examples

In product design, you can use a workshop for every step. Here are some workshop categories as an inspiration:

• knowledge collection/ assumptions/ gap analysis
• brainstorming/ ideation/ design thinking
• decision making/ voting
• feedback

Surveys

What it is

A survey is a list of questions that is used to collect data from a group of people. It can be either sent out to people to self-respond, or it can be used in a guided interview format.

When to use

A survey can be a good approach if you need to collect input from a larger group on a very well-defined topic. Open-ended questions will help you collect new ideas and insights, which is helpful in the discovery phase. Closed questions (like ratings, multiple-choice, or single preferences) are best used for validation.

What to consider

Consider how you want to use the results before brainstorming questions. When you send out a survey, include a deadline for filling it out. Send reminders to increase participation.

Examples

Surveys in the discovery phase can be helpful to collect:

• current behaviour and needs (needs analysis)
• preferred tools and methods (competitor check)
• testing assumptions

Surveys in the validation phase can be used for:

• feedback and preference (A/B testing)
• satisfaction

Lunch & Learn

What it is

A lunch and learn is an organized event in a professional work environment where teammates come together for professional development while enjoying a meal or their lunch break. It’s an informal event and an excellent way to unite people from different departments. The format is usually a presentation or storytelling followed by an open discussion.

When to use

Lunch and learn is a great opportunity to share knowledge and start discussions. You can start sharing lessons learned: processes or methods that you and your team have tried, what worked and what didn’t. You can collect feedback on how to work better together as a team or improve your workflows to benefit other departments.

Use lunch and learns as a temperature gauge and idea collection for the bigger, organized working sessions you might want to do. They are also a networking opportunity and can help promote your and your team's work.

What to consider

Lunch and learns are voluntary so that you won’t have a fixed list of attendees. You should keep them short and leave enough time for discussion and input.

Examples

You can share lessons learned from user research:

• Common customer profiles and their needs or pain points (make it relatable for other departments)
• Customer stories (success and frustrations)
• Research process and how to involve research across the organization

Project War Rooms

What it is

A project war room is a place where a project team can gather their ideas, plans and work in progress.

When to use

A war room is helpful for big projects that require a fixed team of people from different departments to work together for a longer time. It provides space to not only come together and discuss ideas but to collect and share physical outputs. Being able to see outputs, like sketches, notes, and prototypes, will support a creative workflow.

A war room is not only a great working hub for the project team but can also be an invitation to people outside of the project team: they get a glimpse of how the design process works.

You can also invite users into your workspace to get feedback.

What to consider

You need a dedicated space that you can keep for the required length of time. The space should allow you to use walls to put up ideas and notes.

Examples

Working on new features or product improvements that require people with different skill sets: bring them together for a couple of weeks to work on solutions collaboratively.

Gallery Walk

What it is

A gallery walk is a discussion and feedback technique that allows people to learn from each other. Teams and departments can share their current work (in a poster format with descriptions and images, in a short video or in a prototype) in an open space. People can then walk around, get familiar with the different ideas, ask questions, leave feedback and provide input.

When to use

It’s a great method to reduce barriers between departments and introduce people to work that other teams are doing. It is a networking event that engages people from other areas of the organization. It is also an excellent way to showcase and promote your team’s work.

What to consider

This is an organized event that requires time for planning and preparation, not just for the organizer but also for each participating team. To ensure rich participation, you want to select a time and place that works best for the majority of your organization.

Examples

• Yearly showcases of projects in progress
• Showcase of most successful projects or products
• Celebrating big wins in the organization

Interactive Meetings

What it is

An interactive meeting can be described as a “mini workshop,” often spontaneously. The better your facilitation skills and the bigger your toolbox, the more you can jump in and turn a meeting into an engaging, interactive session.

When to use

If you find yourself in a discussion where a group gets stuck, you can use interactive methods to move the team forward: voting exercises, pros and cons lists, and brainwriting.

What to consider

Interactive meetings can be planned — but don’t have to. It’s more about providing facilitation support when a group gets stuck.

Over to you

This list should inspire you for your next collaborative opportunity. Start experiments to see what works best for your situation: pick a method you have never used before or use a known method in a new context.

Happy co-designing!

Why should we care about facilitation skills as UX designers, you ask? I do think that this skill becomes more and more relevant. As UX Designer we take a role of a translator (and sometimes mediator): our goal is to understand and balance needs from users, the business and the context (technology, processes, environments).

A big part of our work is, therefore, to bring people together, lead discussions, create alignment, and share information.

Facilitation skills help make teamwork more effective and break communication barriers. Examples are:

• Managing team meetings
• Improving participation and engagement in group settings
• Increasing clarity and alignment for groups
• Managing a diversity of opinions
• Evaluating choices and creating action plans as a group

Here are some techniques that will help you grow your facilitation skillset.

Listening

This is actually where every good communication starts: with listening. These techniques will help you to make more out of “listening to another person’s words.” Most of us are probably familiar with active listening, so I won’t include this here (but it is a very basic listening technique, so start there first :)).

1 Listening for common ground:

• Description: If discussions are getting stuck because there seem to be polarized opinions and nothing is moving forward, use your neutral position as a facilitator to bring the team to common ground. Summarize what has been said, state the differences, and then state the commonalities. Check for accuracy.
• Example: Facilitator: “Let me summarize what I am hearing. I’m hearing a lot of differences, but also similarities. It sounds like…(share what you have heard). Is that right?”

2 Listening with a point of view:

• Description: You might get in situations where you are leading a conversation as a facilitator, but you are also an expert and can contribute helpful insights. Make it obvious to the group that you are stepping into another role for a moment to share your expertise before returning to the neutral facilitator role.
• Example: Facilitator: “I have some expertise I would like to share. Let me step out of the role of a facilitator for a moment to contribute to the conversation..”

3 Intentional silence:

• Description: When you feel that people need some time to warm up or the topic is really complex and requires more time to think, give 10 seconds of silence after you have asked a question or after a comment. Stay focused on the speaker or the group, pay attention, but don’t say anything
• Example: Silence can work magic. In some situations you want to start with an invitation: “Let’s take a few moments in silence to think of some examples.”

Askin Questions

Knowing how to ask questions is not only relevant in research. Good questions will move discussions forward and bring uncovered topics to the table — another essential section in your skills box.

4 Open-Ended Questions:

• Description: Open-ended questions are helpful whenever we are looking for feedback. They force you to hold back with any assumptions (don’t you like my solution?), but invite people to provide detailed responses, promoting discussion and exploring ideas (what do you think about the solution?).
• Example: Facilitator: “What are your thoughts (on xyz)?”

5 Probing Questions:

• Description: Probing questions help to delve deeper into a person’s response, seeking more information or clarification.
• Example: Facilitator: “You mentioned you wanted to see more information on this dashboard. Can you share more about what information you think would be useful and how this will improve your work?”

6 Balancing Questions:

• Description: Balancing questions helps the group stay open, broaden the discussion, and ensure everyone is heard. It’s especially useful when we are looking for creative inputs.
• Example: Facilitator: “Are there other ways of looking at this? Does everyone agree with this, or do we have other opinions in the room? “

Guiding Communication

Besides listening and asking questions, we also need to ensure that we are guiding the group to a desired outcome. Some techniques here are:

7 Linking:

• Description: Linking involves connecting different ideas or contributions made by participants, helping to show relationships and build a cohesive narrative.
• Example: Facilitator: “Building on Sarah’s point about improved collaboration, John mentioned earlier that better communication is key. It seems like there’s a link between effective communication and collaborative problem-solving. What are your thoughts on this connection?”

8 Redirecting:

• Description: Redirecting involves gently steering the discussion back on track if it deviates or addressing off-topic conversations to maintain focus.
• Example: Facilitator: “I appreciate the input on that topic. Let’s bring our focus back to our current discussion about project milestones.”

9 Consensus Building:

• Description: Facilitators can guide the group toward consensus by highlighting areas of agreement, facilitating compromises, and helping resolve conflicting viewpoints.
• Example: Facilitator: “It seems like we have common ground on these two proposals. Can we explore a compromise that incorporates the strengths of both ideas?”

10 Summarizing:

• Description: Summarizing involves providing a concise overview of key points, decisions, or outcomes from a discussion. It helps reinforce understanding and clarity.
• Example: Facilitator: “To summarize, we’ve identified three main challenges and proposed solutions. Let’s ensure we’re all on the same page before moving forward.”

Takeaways

These techniques can be useful in a variety of situations. You might want to try some in your next research project, in a kick-off meeting or in a feedback session. You’ll realize how often you can support and lead communication, be it with one other person or a group of people.

If you work in an agency or as a freelancer, your design projects might often be “broad” with big and lofty objectives. How do you measure the impact of your design effort?

Let’s take a look at an example.

Emily is working in a design agency as a UX designer. She just started a new project: a redesign of a website. When she asks about the goal for the new design, the client says something like: “ We get a lot of complaints from stakeholders about how difficult it is to find anything.”

Emily can start with a discovery phase to identify more specific user problems. She can then start her design and do some usability tests with her prototype. She might focus specifically on navigation elements and test the findability of information. She gets subjective feedback from her participants (all positive).

Is that enough to measure the UX impact? How do we know if our design effort moves the needle?

Let’s dive a bit deeper and take a look at our instruments…

What tools do we have to measure user experience?

User experience is a subjective and dynamic concept. It describes the individual perceptions and expectations. So when we talk about “improving the UX” we often talk about something fuzzy. How do we measure something so intangible?

What can we measure?

User experience is mainly expressed through two main categories:

• Behaviour (what our customers do)
• Attitude (what they say and how they feel)

How do we measure?

Each category can be measured differently:

• Behaviour is best measured through observation
• Attitude is best measured through self-reports

What tools do we have?

Behaviour can be measured by using numeric values. We can count how often a behaviour occurs, how long it takes, or if it does or does not happen.

Examples are:

• Click-rate
• Drop-off rate
• Time on task
• Steps for task completion

Attitude is mostly measured through description (verbal or written feedback from users). We can use rating scales that allow people to put a numeric value to an attitude — but it is highly subjective and, therefore, difficult to compare numbers.

Examples are:

• Open questions (interview or survey)
• Rating scales like the Net promoter score (NPS) or customer satisfaction score (CSAT)

How to use these tools

Ok, now we understand what we can measure and how to measure it. But how do we start? How do we decide what we want to measure exactly?

Step 1: Define the objective

To be able to measure anything, we need to define our goal. What do we want to accomplish?

Let’s take a look at Emily’s situation. She got a design brief with the objective to “simplify the navigation.” But this is a very broad goal.

As a first step, Emily has to start a conversation to define “success”. And we are talking about success, we want to look at it from two perspectives:

• Success for the business: We want more people to book a consultation with us to increase leads.
• Success for customers: They want to find a solution to help them with their current struggles.

Step 2: Understand the current situation

Measuring impact requires two points. We need to know our destination and current state to measure any “movement”: are we improving, moving forward, or going in the right direction?

So as a next step, Emily needs to be clear about the current state.

She needs to look at the current state of the customer behaviour that is related to her objective:

• How much time do people spend before they schedule a call?
• When and where do they leave?
• Do they reach out with any questions?

Emily also needs to get a sense of the current baseline for the business objectives (how many calls are scheduled currently).

Step 3: Define the measurement

Next, we must define the obstacles that hinder us from reaching our ideal target. UX research can help us to gain more clarity about customer pain points.

Emily did some research and found out:

• People didn’t quite understand the offering and didn’t see the value
• People had a hard time finding answers to their questions

Once we understand the problems and come up with ideas of how to fix them, we can define our measurement criteria.

Emily works on updating the navigation but also the content layout of the product detail pages. Afterwards she is measuring:

• Business KPIs (# of scheduled calls/ month, drop-off rate)
• Customer satisfaction (customer satisfaction score, page ratings (did you find what you are looking for?), A/B test of the navigation).

What you should take away

Yes, UX design impacts cannot always be turned into numbers — but descriptive data can also tell us if we are improving.

Here are some tips for your next project:

• Define your objective, your current situation and your obstacles
• Think about business KPIs and UX measurements
• Use a mix of numeric and descriptive measurements

Additional resources

Want to learn more about measuring UX?

The 3 P’s of measuring User Experience by the Fountain Institute

The complete guide to UX metrics by HubSpot

Measuring UX and ROI Course by NNG

You might have heard about SWOT analysis in a business context — but have you ever tried to use it for your product design decisions?

In product design, we know a product is never “done.” As markets, technology and people are ever-changing, so should your product. Whether you are working on big shifts (like expanding to new markets, accessing a new customer group or adding more features) or making small tweaks, the question is always: what should we focus on?

Do you want to become better at strategic design decisions? Here is another tool for your toolbox: SWOT analysis for product design.

What is a SWOT analysis?

A SWOT analysis is traditionally applied in business strategy and is a powerful decision-making tool. That’s precisely how we can use it for product design: to make better decisions.

SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats — a simple framework to evaluate your product landscape and discover areas for improvement.

📦 Start by looking at your product

• Strengths: Think about what’s working well about your product. What makes your product stand out, and why do customers choose you?
• Weaknesses: Try to be objective when collecting what’s not working well. Where does your product fall short, what are some common negative reviews or what is missing?

🔎 Now, look at your market landscape

• Opportunities: What trends or industry shifts do you see that could provide a new opportunity for your product? Where do you see some potential?
• Threats: What changes are happening that will be challenging for your product? Look at your competition, your customer’s preferences and technical shifts.

By thinking through these 4 aspects, you can quickly identify where you need to focus to grow and to gear up against potential threats.

How is a SWOT analysis beneficial for product design?

Besides being an effective decision-making tool, a SWOT analysis has other benefits to offer as well:

Evaluate your product from multiple angles

With a SWOT analysis, you are not only looking at product features and what’s right in front of you, but you are also forced to consider external factors. To gain clarity in all four areas, you need to assess your product from different angles, including your (direct and indirect) competitors, industry trends, technology changes and customer feedback.

Big-picture thinking for strategic decision-making

Looking at multiple areas, especially external factors, will help you not only think about your obvious new product features but also force you to think about general growth. You can make more strategic product decisions that align with your overarching business objectives.

Enhanced collaboration

A SWOT analysis is not done in silo, but it requires cross-functional collaboration. It’s a great tool to break down silos between UX designers, product managers, and developers. A collaborative approach fosters open communication and a shared understanding, resulting in a more robust design strategy and cohesive product vision across teams.

Focus your design efforts on maximum impact

SWOT analysis acts as a compass, guiding teams to allocate their efforts where they matter most. By identifying the most critical strengths to leverage, weaknesses to address, opportunities to explore, and threats to mitigate, you can define priorities and set a clear focus for your design direction. Knowing which ideas will yield maximum impact results in a more efficient and purposeful design process.

How do I do a SWOT analysis for product design?

While you could use it as a simple brainstorming template and collect your ideas for each of the 4 areas, the real power of this tool comes through collaboration. It’s best to be used in a workshop session. Here are some practical tips to ensure your SWOT analysis is effective and actionable:

1. Gather a diverse team: Include individuals from various roles, such as UX designers, product managers, developers, and customer support. Diverse perspectives enrich the analysis.
2. Define clear objectives: Clearly outline the objectives of your SWOT analysis. Whether it’s improving an existing feature or creating a new product, having a defined goal keeps the analysis focused.
3. Comprehensive research: Ground your analysis in market and user data. Collect existing insights, like data analysis, market research, and trend reports. Conduct additional research like surveys, interviews, and usability tests to understand user perceptions and pain points.
4. Collaborative workshops: Conduct collaborative workshops or brainstorming sessions to gather insights from team members. This encourages cross-functional collaboration and diverse perspectives.
5. SWOT matrix: Create a visual SWOT matrix to organize and categorize your findings. This visual representation makes it easier to identify patterns and relationships.
6. Ideas for improvement: For each area, think about specific ideas for improvements that are aligned with your business objective.
7. Prioritization frameworks: Use frameworks like the Eisenhower Matrix to prioritize identified elements. This helps in focusing efforts on high-impact areas.
8. Take action: Your prioritized list of ideas can inform your product roadmap and turn into specific projects.
9. Regular review and updates: SWOT analysis isn’t a one-time task. Regularly review and update your analysis as the product evolves, market conditions change, or user preferences shift.

What resources should I use for a SWOT analysis in product design?

Your SWOT analysis will become more robust if you do your homework and collect data before starting a workshop. Let’s look at some data sources you can use. They are different for new vs existing products.

SWOT analysis of a NEW product

Identifying potential strengths

You don’t have any empirical evidence yet for a new product, but you can understand what is currently missing and what value your product can offer for your target audience.

• Market research: Analyze the current market and identify unmet needs
• Surveys/ focus groups: Get insights from consumers about what’s missing
• Forums and reviews: Look at online places, where your target audience is talking about their needs, sharing frustrations or leaving reviews about your competitors

Anticipating potential weaknesses

Starting with a new product often has inherent weaknesses (you need to build awareness and loyalty). With an iterative design approach and prototype testing, you can collect feedback about perceived weaknesses:

• Usability prototyping: Create prototypes and conduct usability tests to identify potential user experience hurdles.
• In-depth sser research: Understand potential user objections or concerns through comprehensive user interviews and surveys.

Exploring opportunities for innovation

Novelty itself is not always an opportunity: you have to provide value. Research is here helpful as well:

• User-Centric Design Thinking: Involve potential users early in the design process to capture insights and uncover unexplored opportunities.
• Emerging technologies: Leverage new technologies to create innovative features that address current user pain points.

Mitigating potential threats

Whether you have a new or an existing product, the market changes will always be a threat. You always want to think three moves ahead — so keep an eye on your market landscape:

• Competitor analysis: Identify potential threats from competitors and design strategies to counteract them.
• Regulatory landscape: Anticipate potential legal or regulatory challenges and design with compliance in mind.

SWOT analysis for an EXISTING product

Identifying strengths in current designs:

If you have an existing product, you will likely have specific product data to use in your analysis.

• Performance metrics: Evaluate loading times, responsiveness, and overall performance to highlight technical strengths.
• User satisfaction: Analyze user feedback, reviews, and satisfaction metrics to pinpoint aspects of your design that users love.
• Usability testing: Conduct usability tests to identify features that contribute to a positive user experience.

Recognizing weaknesses in current designs:

The same data you looked at for strengths will also tell you something about your weaknesses. In addition, look at your competitors as a comparison and benchmark.

• User feedback analysis: Pay attention to common complaints, recurring user issues, and feedback indicating improvement areas.
• Usability testing: Uncover pain points by observing user interactions and identifying stumbling blocks in the user journey.
• Competitor benchmarking: Compare your product against competitors to identify areas where your design falls short.

Exploring opportunities for improvement:

When it comes to exploring opportunities, think beyond your existing customers. Take a look at general market and technology trends.

• User trends and preferences: Stay abreast of emerging trends and changing user preferences to identify opportunities for design enhancement.
• Competitive analysis: Analyze competitors’ products to identify features or trends that can be integrated into your design.
• Technological advancements: Stay informed about new technologies that can enhance your product’s features and capabilities.

Mitigating threats to user experience:

Similar to our list for new products, you need to stay up to date with market and technology changes:

• Market research: Keep an eye on market trends, user behaviour shifts, and potential disruptions that may threaten your design.
• Regulatory landscape: Address potential threats related to data security, privacy concerns, or regulatory changes.
• User feedback on competitors: Learn from user feedback on competitors’ products to preemptively address similar concerns in your design.

Common pitfalls to avoid

The outcome of a SWOT analysis is only as good as the input. Be mindful of the following aspects:

1. Biased perspectives: Be aware of biases that might skew the analysis. Ensure participation of people with different backgrounds and perspectives. Encourage open dialogue and diverse viewpoints to mitigate subjective judgments.
2. Overlooking user feedback: User feedback is invaluable. Don’t overlook or dismiss it. Incorporate real user experiences and sentiments into your analysis.
3. Lack of preparation and research: Don’t just use your gut feeling or personal assumptions. Put in the effort and look at different data sources to gain a better understanding of your market and competitors.
4. Lack of actionable insights: Ensure that the analysis translates into actionable insights. Each identified strength, weakness, opportunity, or threat should lead to a tangible design strategy or improvement plan.

By following these practical tips, you’ll conduct a comprehensive SWOT analysis and transform it into a dynamic tool for driving effective UX design decisions. Now, armed with a well-informed SWOT analysis, you can strategically shape your design processes and deliver user experiences that resonate with your audience.

Questions to keep in mind for your SWOT analysis

Here is a cheat sheet of questions you can use for your SWOT analysis workshops.

Strengths:

• What problems is your product solving for your customers? What needs does it satisfy?
• What does it do better than other products available on the market? Which features stand out as being significantly better than competition?
• What do customers value the most? What do they talk about in reviews?
• What could your customers not live without that your product offers?

Weaknesses:

• What is not working well? What are your customers complaining about?
• Which are the missing features that your clients need the most?
• What solutions do your competitors offer/ where do you fall behind?
• What are possible reasons why a customer would choose your competitor over you?

Opportunities:

• What are the needs of different customer segments? What are unmet expectations?
• Are there other customer segments that might benefit from your product offering?
• Can your product be offered to other markets?
• What partners do you have in your industry to offer a bundled service?
• What changes in technology can you leverage to improve your product?
• What behaviour changes do you see that you can leverage?

Threats:

• What are your direct competitors doing? How likely will they launch a new product that is better or more appealing than yours?
• What are your indirect competitors doing? Are they substitute demand for your products and services?
• Are there any market shifts that will create a barrier for suing your product?
• Are there any start ups or new entrants that aim to disrupt the industry?
• How are consumer preferences changing regarding pricing, product features and service models?
• What is the impact of technological change in your industry?
• Do other business and economic factors have an impact on your industry (e.g. duties, offshoring, automation, self service,…)?

Key take-aways

A SWOT analysis can be used as a strategic tool for decision-making in product design. It helps you to use big-picture thinking and keep overarching business goals in mind. When used in a collaborative setting, you can bring your team on board and create a shared product vision.

🫵 Over to you

Where do you see room for a SWOT analysis in your product design process? Try it out on the product you are currently working on: what new ideas do you discover?

💡 Want to learn more?

Here are some additional resources:

• Miro: Conducting a SWOT analysis + templates
• UX Strategy Kit: Swot analysis workshop + Figma