Proactive UX Design: A Big Leap Requiring Baby Steps

The product leadership, seeing the benefits of good design work, wants more of it. Yet, all they know is the processes and deliverables of reactive UX design. They like the wireframes and usability tests.

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When a design team is engaging proactively, their research efforts are exploring the users’ experience in more detail. They go beyond usability testing by heading out of the building to on-site visits, seeing customers and users in their natural habitats. These observations bring back a larger context of what the users’ challenges are. These challenges aren’t often addressed by any competitors, let alone by the organization’s own products.

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The deliverables of proactive UX design give substantially more guidance to the product team. The design team can create journey maps and service blueprints to show what the users’ current experiences are. They can craft an experience vision to promote what an ideal, aspirational experience could be.

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The reactive UX design work can’t stop. It’s adding necessary value to the product.

However, the way most design teams handle reactive UX design work can change. Instead of designers doing all the work, they can start to share the burden.

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Proactive UX design requires different work from what a team does for reactive UX design. The design team needs to add this additional work into their daily routine.

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The rule of thumb is simple: If the rest of the team can notice you’re doing something different, you’re probably changing too much too fast. Design leadership is a game of patience. To avoid triggering resistance to change, any change has to happen undetected under the radar.

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Posted on September 14, 2018