Building An Effective UX strategy: Axelerant’s Approach To Boosting Business Growth

Introduction

Back in 2020, Slack announced one of its major design overhauls. By prioritizing user feedback and collaboration, they transformed a complex interface into a streamlined, intuitive experience. 

In the official blog, they highlighted the importance of:

• Empathy: Understanding user pain points and needs was central to the redesign.
• Iteration: Continuous refinement based on user feedback drove the process.
• Collaboration: Cross-functional teams and direct user involvement accelerated progress.
• Simplicity: Stripping away unnecessary elements created a cleaner, more focused interface.

Slack's approach offers valuable insights for organizations aiming to enhance user experience and drive business value by prioritising UX strategy.

What Is A UX Strategy?

A UX strategy is a comprehensive roadmap that guides an organization in delivering exceptional user experiences. It aligns business goals with user needs, creating a clear path for product development and design. Rooted in deep user research and a profound understanding of the target audience, a robust UX strategy establishes a shared vision and actionable steps to achieve it.

The Benefits Of UX Strategy

A well-defined UX strategy is instrumental in driving business success. By placing the user at the center of every decision, organizations can:

• Enhance User Satisfaction and Loyalty: A focus on user needs leads to products and services that truly resonate, fostering long-term relationships.
• Align Design With Business Goals: A clear UX strategy ensures that design efforts contribute directly to overall business objectives.
• Drive Innovation: By understanding user needs and market trends, organizations can identify opportunities for groundbreaking products and services.
• Build a Strong Brand Reputation: Consistent and positive user experiences contribute to a strong brand identity and reputation.
• Achieve Scalability: A well-structured UX strategy enables seamless expansion of product offerings and services.

What Are The Main Elements Of A UX Strategy?

Peter Morville, a pioneer in information architecture and user experience, best describes the pillars or facets of UX design using a honeycomb structure.

The Seven Components Of Morville's UX Honeycomb

1. Useful: Does it solve a user problem and offer value?
2. Usable: Is it intuitive and easy to accomplish tasks?
3. Desirable: Is it aesthetically pleasing and engaging?
4. Findable: Can users easily discover the content and features they need?
5. Accessible: Can everyone use it, regardless of ability?
6. Credible: Does it build trust and meet user expectations?
7. Valuable: Does it provide a worthwhile benefit to the user?

How Axelerant Helped Craft A UX Strategy To Modernize WRAP's Website

WRAP, an NGO specializing in waste management, aimed to enhance its global image and website usability. In preparation for their website redesign in July 2024, WRAP decided to use a data-driven approach with an expert UX audit.

Axelerant partnered with WRAP to conduct the UX audit to ensure the redesign and rebranding aligned with WRAP's evolving global focus. The detailed insights from the audit served as the foundation for the website redesign, making it a global hub for circular living.

The Challenge

WRAP faced significant challenges in its goal to inspire audiences, encourage change, attract investments, and articulate the organization’s mission effectively. These challenges included:

• Ineffective communication of WRAP's products and services.
• Lack of lead generation capabilities.
• Missing data-driven approach to identify and meet business and user needs.
• Limited global reach and poor alignment with WRAP's evolving global focus.
• Inadequate accessibility and inclusivity for users.
• Need for a comprehensive content strategy.

The Solution

Axelerant conducted a thorough UX audit to lay the foundation for a seamless user experience for WRAP’s diverse, global audience.  

1. Audit Aligned With Agreed Deliverables: Collaborated closely with WRAP to identify the website’s target audience and business and user needs through extensive internal and user research.
2. Detailed Research: Uncovered opportunities to enhance user experience by enabling self-service and improving communication of WRAP's offerings.
3. Several Areas Of Improvement: Identified key opportunities to boost lead generation capabilities, especially for Voluntary Agreements and new investments.
4. Content Strategy: Recommended an 'always-on' content approach to keep audiences engaged and ensure the website resonated with international audiences.
5. Inclusivity And Accessibility Recommendations: Emphasized the importance of an accessible website, ensuring WRAP’s mission and resources are available to everyone.

The process included:

• Heuristic Analysis
• Expert UX Design Audit
• User Journey Mapping
• Competitor Analysis

The Results

The audit provided WRAP with a clear roadmap for website enhancement, ensuring the upcoming redesign project was well-informed and strategically aligned. Despite a tight deadline, Axelerant completed the project on time through close collaboration with the client. The impact included:

• Elevated WRAP as a global authority 
• Optimized conversion for key audiences
• Shaped user experience for a rebranded vision 
• Competitive intelligence for global leadership 

The Axelerant Process Of Creating A UX Strategy

At Axelerant, there's a simplified three-step approach followed for creating a stellar UX strategy:

Step 1: Research

To create a successful product, it's essential to deeply understand both the people who will use it and the business goals it aims to achieve. Clearly defining user needs and business objectives lays the groundwork for a great digital product.

Research is key to uncovering hidden opportunities and refining the product vision. There are many ways to learn about user behavior. In-depth conversations with potential users can offer rich insights into their hopes, needs, and expectations. Talking to stakeholders also helps align the product with business goals.

Understanding how people naturally categorize information (through card sorting) and gathering both detailed and broad feedback (through user surveys and interviews) provides a comprehensive view. These early discoveries can be used to create detailed user profiles and kickstart the design process.

Step 2: Goal Setting & Planning

The next step is to outline clear goals and a strategic plan to reach them. These goals should be specific, measurable, and aligned with both user needs and business objectives. It's important to avoid conflicts between these elements.

With the goals in place, the team can develop a clear roadmap including setting milestones, key actions, and deadlines.

Step 3: Iterating

A successful UX strategy includes proper documentation. It needs constant attention and improvement. To achieve this, ongoing collaboration and open communication are essential. By regularly gathering user feedback and making changes based on these insights, the strategy can stay relevant and effective as both the product and market evolve.

Mistakes To Avoid When Creating A UX Strategy

Crafting a user experience strategy can be complex, with many hidden perils. To ensure a spotless strategy, make sure to avoid these common mistakes:

• Losing Sight Of The Big Picture

Avoid focusing too much on the design details. Instead, focus on the big picture and always have in mind your UX vision.

• Scraping User Research

Avoid the common trap of basing the development of the product on hunches and intuition. Allocate time to gather user insights through thorough user research.

• Ignoring Business Goals

Ensure your user experience strategy is aligned with the business objectives to avoid creating strategies disconnected from the wider business goals.

• Creating A Rigid UX Strategy

Don’t create rigid UX strategies with an overcomplicated plan that cannot be adapted. Be flexible to adapt to the ever-changing needs of today’s market.

• Creating A UX Silo

Promote collaboration between product teams and stakeholders to ensure transparency and alignment, avoiding the creation of silos.

• Not Documenting The Strategy

Document your strategy and update the strategy document with every iteration to avoid confusion and create a shared vision across the board.

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