From Skepticism to Success: How to Get Your Company on Board with UX Best Practices

Starting your first job as a UX designer is always an exciting time, whether its your first UX work or recently hired to a new company.?

At this moment, you are very much eager to use your skills and knowledge to create designs that prioritize the user experience.?

However, when tasked with creating screens, you are asked to “make it pop” without any user insights. You asked yourself “maybe I’m at a later part”?. But as time goes by, the lack of proper UX process persists, you start to feel frustrated.

As a UX designer, you understand the importance of being proactive in advocating for the user. And so you decided to step up.?

“I am going to pitch how to properly integrate UX in our product development process” you say.

As a relatively new industry, understanding the value and role of UX design can be a challenge, especially for those who have recently joined a company. It’s not uncommon for colleagues to be unaware of what a UX designer does or why they were hired in the first place.

Joining a company that has not fully embraced UX can make the process even more difficult.

You may have heard the phrase “a dollar in UX gives a hundred dollar ROI,” but it’s likely that your colleagues are not yet aware of this potential value.?

This involves “selling” the value gain of a proper UX process.

It’s important to remember that all business, including UX design, involves some level of sales. Even if you don’t consider yourself a “salesperson,” as a designer, you are still responsible for communicating and selling the value of proper UX to your colleagues, managers and stakeholders.?

By effectively “selling” the value of proper UX, you can improve the long-term success of the UX within your company and the industry as a whole.

This article offers tips for UX designers on how to effectively communicate the value of UX within their company. Whether you are new to the field of UX design or new to a company, or simply want to see your company fully embrace the potential of UX, the information in this article is relevant to you.?

Let’s begin exploring the strategies for successfully advocating for UX within your organization.

To be an effective advocate for proper UX within your company, you have to practice the following ability:

1??Your likability

2??Your resilience

3??Your persistence

3??Your emphatic ability

5?? Your presentation skills

Your likability

You have to be somebody other people wants to be around.

As UX Designers, our job boils down to advocating for the users while maintaining balance for business and technology.?

Most software development process are less mature, some consults designers at the 9th hour, and most just ask us to “make it pop”.Users had it worst, many don’t even consult them, least at the end when everything was already shipped.

Since most company had their process set up — you coming along means change. And change is scary to most people. Your liability makes “the incoming changes” less doomlike. But never lose sight of your role as a representative of the users.

Want to increase your likability in a snap? Stop complaining. Keep the negativity to yourself — and put on a big smile! Looking at yourself dead-on, say “I am in a great mood.”

Your resilience

When you proposed a proper UX process, it won’t be adopted immediately (for a lot of reasons). But it doesn’t mean it won’t be adopted in the next few pitches.?

As UX designers, you should be comfortable with rejections.

And, if you don’t truly believe in the value of a good UX process, you will self-reject.

There are 4 main types of objections:

NIH: Not invented here

WTTA: We tried that already

TTWWDIAH: That’s the way we do it around here

TNTWWDIAH: That’s not the way we do it around here

Anticipating objections is part of any presentation, so be ready for rebuttals. Consider how your audiences view the situation. You need to show them how they will benefit from it and mitigate their concerns.

Your persistence

The most successful salespeople are the ones who try more often.

Remember, many don’t understand what UX truly do. You have to keep trying. You have to be persistent. And you have to vary the medium of delivery.

Remember, the Einstein Insanity quote “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results”

Get creative and try different ways to pitch your idea. You might run it by coworkers during a meeting, discuss it with peers, sneak in the page of a relevant deck, and so on

If you truly believe in the potential of proper UX, be relentless. Keep trying new approaches to get your ideas heard — through different voices and venues.

Your presentation skills

Are you pitching UX all over again? In the same manner? With same format? At the same venue?

If yes, you need to get creative — many times as necessary.

Keep changing the message while keeping focus on what UX process can bring at the table. If your boss rejects your idea, restate and reposition it, to improve its chances of being accepted.

Adopt differing point of view. Be nimble. The more creative your message is, the better at selling UX process you’ll be.

You should note that the method for proposing a proper UX process varies depending on a company’s unique factors, such as office politics and decision-making by high-level executives. However, one constant remains: you have to sell your case for user-centered design processes.

To end, UX is still a baby. We all have the responsibility of taking care of it. We should promote proper UX as the key to better products and user experience — even if it means taking the role of a salesperson.