Moving UX into a Position of Corporate Influence: Whose Advice Really Works? - 9 October 2007

Read this article in Chinese (translated by Liu Fangfang , proofread by Wei He)

Recently, a Principal User Experience Architect wrote about the challenges User eXperience (UX) was confronting in her place of work:

"Currently UX does not have it's own budget or access to dollars. We continually compete with conflicting priorities at the product management level. ...we have the desire to provide 'delightful' user experiences as part of our overarching goals, but without any tactical programs in place to achieve that goal we are simply putting bandaids on the UX as we go with individual projects. ...we're about 5 years behind in our UX and we need to jumpstart to get closer to today."
      from CHI-WEB, 9 July 2007

What should she do? How should she go about achieving needed changes in her company? What approach should she take to as rapidly as possible move UX into a position of greater corporate influence?

Ask people for answers to those questions, and you'll get a lot of different answers. Look in "the literature" for answers to those questions, and you'll get a lot of different answers. And what is particularly interesting is that you will often get some answers that conflict with others.

Hence, whose advice really works?

For CHI 2007, I assembled a panel of 6 people in Senior UX Management positions to explore answers to that question -- people who had themselves moved UX into positions of influence in a variety of companies.

And as revealed during the conference session (see "So, whose advice really works?"), what worked in one company was not always what worked in another.

Was documenting and evangelizing (i.e., explaining and advocating for) UX work considered to be a critical component of what it took to move UX into a position of corporate influence? It was in some companies, but not in others. For example:

"For Blue Shield in particular, it was incredibly important to establish a visual (process) model, working with multiple teams, multiple disciplines, multiple business units, that they can refer to when they were struggling with or trying to understand when to engage the user experience team. ..."
      Shauna Sampson Eves, Director of User Experience, Blue Shield of California

"At Wells Fargo, it was critical for us to make sure that our partners didn't perceive our design team as a black box and assume that we had some magical powers to create things that weren't in the control of the product managers or the IT personnel, but were somehow achievable by the user experience people. ..."
      Secil Watson, Senior Vice President of Internet Channel Strategy, Wells Fargo

"I think that user experience teams spend a lot of time trying to justify themselves, and I wish they would spend the time and energy that they spend justifying themselves actually doing design work..."
      Jeremy Ashley, Vice President of Applications User Experience, Oracle

"Do NOT evangelize..."
      Manfred Tcheligi for Tobias Herrmann, Head of Team User Experience, mobilkom austria

Has it been important for UX personnel to establish ownership over the UX to move UX into a position of corporate influence? It was in some companies, but not in others. For example:

"At Cisco, (the UX Design group) always owns the user experience. It is like building a house, where you have an architect who develops the blueprint, and the construction crew builds it."
      Jim Nieters, Senior Manager of User Experience Design, Cisco

"...in order to get to a user experience that is a positive experience, a lot of different groups need to work together. They all need to understand how their competency impacts the final experience that gets delivered to the user. The user experience team in this environment becomes more of a facilitator."
      Secil Watson, Senior Vice President of Internet Channel Strategy, Wells Fargo

"...user experience has too many facets -- too much to be owned by one particular group."
      Manfred Tscheligi for Tobias Herrmann, Head of Team User Experience, mobilkom austria

Was organizational positioning of user experience personnel critical to moving UX into a position of corporate influence? It was in some companies, but not in others. For example:

"Organizational positioning has been a critical factor in our success at Cisco."
      Jim Nieters, Senior Manager of User Experience Design, Cisco

"...the organizational structure you are in has a big influence..."
      Justin Miller, Senior Director of Product for Europe, eBay

"My customer experience team has been a part of product management, sales and marketing, and now strategy. So, in terms of where you are in the organization, I'm not sure it really matters."
      Secil Watson, Senior Vice President of Internet Channel Strategy, Wells Fargo

Has estimating return on investment (ROI) been critical to moving UX into a position of corporate influence? It was in some companies, but not in others. For example:

"Starting the user experience group at mobilkom austria, it was essential to think about this ROI discussion and to prove that the money invested in this group was invested in the right way."
      Manfred Tscheligi for Tobias Herrmann, Head of Team User Experience, mobilkom austria

"At eBay, we developed ROI calculations for every project that we wanted to do... Recently, we realized that looking at ROI on a project by project basis was not the right approach... We needed to be looking at the user experience and other things at a higher level."
      Justin Miller, Senior Director of Product for Europe, eBay

"If your company is still in the position of asking for ROI, or if you feel you need to do it, your company just doesn't get it. If they don't get the value of design, I'd move to another company."
      Jeremy Ashley, Vice President of Applications User Experience, Oracle

Has conducting ethnographic research been critical to moving UX into a position of corporate influence? It was in some companies, but not in others. For example:

"It has been really critical for us, and I highly recommend it for you as well."
      Secil Watson, Senior Vice President of Internet Channel Strategy, Wells Fargo

"This has been a huge, huge lever for us, and it has really helped move the organization."
      Justin Miller, Senior Director of Product for Europe, eBay

"Blue Shield has not done a whole lot of ethnographic research."
      Shauna Sampson Eves, Director of User Experience, Blue Shield of California

"It wasn't important to move the UI group into the position that it is in at the moment, but it will be important in the future to extend the activities and to do much more about that."
      Manfred Tscheligi for Tobias Herrmann, Head of Team User Experience, mobilkom austria

The Principal User Experience Architect quoted at the beginning of this article has some other ideas about how to achieve the change she seeks. And I shared some ideas of my own with her.

But what will work?

Lots of things might work. But many, if not all, of those same things might not work.

Justin Miller put it well in his concluding remarks of the panel:

"You have to know how to influence your own organization, because that is what is going to make you successful. And that is going to be different from organization to organization, and within the same organization, it is going to vary over time. So, you've got to be plugged into how to change and influence things where you work, ... and you've got to be sure that you have the right capability (to do that)."

Hence, be sure to not make the mistake of thinking that what you learn worked in another company is without question what you should be doing and what will work in yours.

(For an extended overview of the issues addressed during this CHI 2007 session, see "Moving UX into a Position of Corporate Influence: Whose Advice Really Works?". Additional followups appear and will continue to appear later in my blog.)

Riander is Richard I Anderson, a user experience practice, management, and organizational strategy consultant with more than 20 years of experience.

Contact Richard if you have a need for any of the kinds of user experience

• leadership/management,
• mentoring/support,
• or guided exploration and learning

outlined in his website.

See also "On the Role 'User Experience' Plays in Your Business" for a list of Riander services.

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