Without which capital even $200k on creating good UX can be wasted?

Money isn’t the only capital needed for the successful creation of a product.

Besides money, a team, and energy, you also need expertise. Expertise in different areas helps a product owner build a product that is in demand and successful. To do this, a huge amount of knowledge and experience is required:

• Understanding the market and trends
• Understanding the audience
• Product management
• Negotiation skills
• Presentation and sales
• And, of course, expertise in creating good UX

This list could go on forever. Expertise is built up over the years, and expecting that you can become an expert in all these areas is unrealistic. And you don’t need to be.

After all, you don't treat your illnesses on your own – you go to a doctor. When you build a house, you hire builders. You delegate to competent people. The same applies to creating a high-quality UX design: you need experienced specialists.

How do you know something is going wrong?

Without the necessary expertise, you might not recognize the warning signs indicating that your product is causing frustration for users. This anxiety doesn’t appear out of nowhere – it’s tied to the fact that you’re trying to solve problems without the right knowledge.

Here are the things that may cause you concern:

1. Frequent questions from users: If you constantly receive questions like "Where do I find this feature?" or "How does this work?", it's a red flag. Users shouldn’t have to learn how to use the interface – it should be intuitive from the start.
2. Low user engagement: If users check out your product but don’t return, it’s a serious sign. The reason might be that the product isn’t interesting or it’s too complicated to use.
3. Feeling of chaos in development: It seems like the team is constantly making updates, but the final result still isn’t satisfying. This might mean that you lack a clear UX strategy.
4. Difficulty with feedback: Users are giving fragmented or unclear feedback, which makes it hard to figure out what needs improvement.
5. Rising costs without improvement: You keep spending more on development, but key problems remain unresolved.

Why do these symptoms arise?

These problems are a direct result of missing expertise and strategy. Here are a few reasons why this happens:

• Wrong priorities. Without a clear understanding of UX strategy, you may focus on features that don’t matter to users.
• Lack of user research. UX design is not just about pretty screens – it’s about deeply understanding user needs.
• Ineffective communication with the team. Without strong project management skills, it’s likely that your team won’t work in sync.
• Lack of a testing and improvement cycle. One of the foundations of UX design is continuous testing and iteration.
• Not understanding the difference between developers and UX designers. Developers and UX designers have different skill sets, and both are necessary.

How to fix the situation?

• Dive into the basics of UX design – A few hours of consultation with a specialist can save you a lot of time and provide clarity.
• Delegate UX tasks to specialists with experience in your niche. Communicate well at the start, then reduce oversight as trust builds.
• Invest in user research and testing.
• Set clear product goals that prioritize user value.

Conclusion

If you start noticing the symptoms mentioned above, it’s a sign to reevaluate your strategy. Lack of expertise is one of the main reasons why even large budgets can be wasted.

It’s important to understand that a product isn’t just a set of features, but also a great user experience. Without expertise and UX strategy, you risk losing money, opportunities, and users, and your product may not solve the problems it was meant to address.