Slide 1
Slide 1 text
Björn Rohles & Julia Messerschmidt, Mensch & Computer 2025
Anchoring Human-Centeredness
in Organizations
A Study on the Current State of UX Vision and UX Strategy
Slide 2
Slide 2 text
Authors
Björn Rohles
([email protected])
UX Training Manager, Team lead, Author
Ph.D. in Human-Computer Interaction
Introduction
2
Julia Messerschmidt
([email protected])
Teamlead Onsite Consultants UX
Dipl.-Psychologin
Slide 3
Slide 3 text
Definitions
• Work done in the context of the UX
strategy working group (German UPA).
• Strategy aims to create unique
competitive advantage by being
distinctive (Porter, 2011)
• UX strategy aims to create a
human-centered orientation of an
organisation, aims to achieve business
objectives (IAPUX, n.d.; Rohles et al.,
2023; UXQB, 2022)
• UX vision is “shared vision of the
intended UX” (Winter et al., 2023)
UX Strategy & UX Vision
Components of UX strategy, adapted from Kaley & Gibbons, 2022
Slide 4
Slide 4 text
CX and CX strategy
• Substantial research on the related concepts
of customer experience (CX) and CX
strategy, for example on successfully
implementing CX strategy (Köninger &
Goultier, 2024).
• CX strategy known to increase customer
orientation in organizations (Köninger &
Goultier, 2024).
• Organizations increasingly implement UX or
CX management (Homburg et al., 2017),
often including a strategic focus.
Related Work
Photo by Getty Images, Unsplash+
Slide 5
Slide 5 text
Compared to CX strategy, research
on UX strategy is scarce research.
Work done on barriers to
integrating UX (Nielsen et al., 2024)
and factors impacting UX strategy
(Rohles et al., 2023).
→ Little is known about how
established UX strategy is and how
it is implemented in practice.
Research gap
Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash
Slide 6
Slide 6 text
Research Questions
The Current State of
UX Vision & UX Strategy
Slide 7
Slide 7 text
Research Questions
Identifying the “status quo” of UX visions and UX strategies
How frequent are UX visions and UX strategies?
1
How are UX visions and UX strategies
created, implemented, and measured?
3
Which aspects do UX visions and UX strategies
cover?
2
Slide 8
Slide 8 text
Methodology
The Current State of
UX Vision & UX Strategy
Slide 9
Slide 9 text
Data collection
Quantitative survey
64 respondents
Qualitative interviews
11 participants
Slide 10
Slide 10 text
Analysis
Quantitative data
SPSS
Qualitative data
Thematic analysis (two authors)
Discussion of disagreements
Thematic maps
Slide 11
Slide 11 text
Analysis
Thematic analysis (MaxQDA)
Slide 12
Slide 12 text
Analysis
Example thematic map
Slide 13
Slide 13 text
Results & Discussion
The Current State of
UX Vision & UX Strategy
Slide 14
Slide 14 text
RQ 1: How frequent are
UX visions and UX strategies?
Slide 15
Slide 15 text
RQ 1: How frequent are UX visions and UX strategies?
Slide 16
Slide 16 text
RQ 1: How frequent are UX visions and UX strategies?
UX vision and UX strategy are not very common for strategic UX
work.
1
“We have not yet been able to
convince management of the
need for a UX vision/strategy.”
n=21
Benefit is unclear
n=16
Insufficient
time for
strategy
P4, P8
(Qualitative
interviews)
“We do not have a UX strategy as such
because we are convinced that,
from a product perspective,
it does not generate any added value
if UX is not part of the product strategy.”
P10 (Qualitative interviews)
Slide 17
Slide 17 text
RQ 2: Which aspects do UX
visions and UX strategies cover?
Slide 18
Slide 18 text
RQ 2: Which aspects do UX visions and UX strategies cover?
Slide 19
Slide 19 text
RQ 2: Which aspects do UX visions and UX strategies cover?
Slide 20
Slide 20 text
RQ 2: Which aspects do UX visions and UX strategies cover?
Slide 21
Slide 21 text
RQ 2: Which aspects do UX visions and UX strategies cover?
Slide 22
Slide 22 text
RQ 2: Which aspects do UX visions and UX strategies cover?
Slide 23
Slide 23 text
RQ 3: How are UX visions
and UX strategies created,
implemented, and measured?
Slide 24
Slide 24 text
RQ 3: How are UX visions and UX strategies created,
implemented, and measured?
Driving factors:
• often driven by internal UX staff as a reaction to
external factors
• strategic work on UX typically requires high personal
motivation
1
“I think you need someone
pushing the vision forward
because a vision is
still very strongly linked to a person.
Someone has to [...] be
the evangelist of this vision.”
P8 (Qualitative interviews)
Slide 25
Slide 25 text
RQ 3: How are UX visions and UX strategies created,
implemented, and measured?
Driving factors:
• often driven by internal UX staff as a reaction to
external factors
• strategic work on UX typically requires high personal
motivation
1
“I think you need someone
pushing the vision forward
because a vision is
still very strongly linked to a person.
Someone has to [...] be
the evangelist of this vision.”
P8 (Qualitative interviews)
Implementing factor: UX strategy is collaborative:
• involves several departments
• conflicts might occur
• involvement of C-level executives and external support
relatively rare
2
Slide 26
Slide 26 text
RQ 3: How are UX visions and UX strategies created,
implemented, and measured?
Driving factors:
• often driven by internal UX staff as a reaction to
external factors
• strategic work on UX typically requires high personal
motivation
1
“I think you need someone
pushing the vision forward
because a vision is
still very strongly linked to a person.
Someone has to [...] be
the evangelist of this vision.”
P8 (Qualitative interviews)
Implementing factor: UX strategy is collaborative:
• involves several departments
• conflicts might occur
• involvement of C-level executives and external support
relatively rare
2
UX strategy requires constant measurement. This
includes measuring…
• … the UX of products and services,
• … the UX maturity of the organisation,
• … the impact of the UX strategy
3
Slide 27
Slide 27 text
Wrap Up & Future Work
The Current State of
UX Vision & UX Strategy
Slide 28
Slide 28 text
• focus on German-speaking UX
community, might need
replication in other communities
• longitudinal study useful
• double entries from the same
organization might be possible,
but no evidence found
• link between UX strategy and
business outcomes worthwhile
investigating
Limitations
Photo by Sigmund on Unsplash
Slide 29
Slide 29 text
• UX professionals value UX
strategy as guiding light for their
work
• evidence of mismatch between
strategic aspirations of UX staff
and organizations' operational
view of UX
• UX professionals need to prove
the value of UX on business
objectives
• alliances necessary to support
strategic UX work
Implications
Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash
Slide 30
Slide 30 text
Thank you for your attention.
Questions?
Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash
Contacts and slides:
Slide 31
Slide 31 text
References
Slide 32
Slide 32 text
References
• Christian Homburg, Danijel Jozić, and Christina Kuehnl. 2017. Customer experience management: toward implementing an evolving marketing
concept. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 45, 3 (May 2017), 377–401. doi:10.1007/s11747-015-0460-7
• IAPUX (Association for the International Accreditation of UX Professionals and Quality Assurance in the Professional Field of UX, Usability and
Human-centered Design). [n. d.]. Focus Areas. https://ux-accreditation.org/focus-areas/
• Anna Kaley and Sarah Gibbons. 2022. UX Strategy: Definition and Components. https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ux-strategy/
• Juliane Kristina Köninger and Matthias H.J. Gouthier. 2024. Successful i mentation of customer experience strategy: determinants and results.
Journal of Service Management 35, 5 (Nov. 2024), 605–629. doi:10.1108/JOSM-10-2023-0431
• Sara Nielsen, Rodrigo Ordoñez, Mikael B. Skov, and Elizabeth Jochum. 2024. Strategies for strengthening UX competencies and cultivating
corporate UX in a large organisation developing robots. Behaviour & Information Technology 43, 9 (July 2024), 1769–1797.
doi:10.1080/0144929X.2023.2227284
• Michael E. Porter. 2011. What Is Strategy? In Harvard Business Review. HBR’s 10 must reads, Vol. HBR’s 10 Must Reads On Strategy. Harvard
Business School Publishing Corporation, Boston, Massachusetts, 1–37.
• Björn Rohles, Anjelika Votintseva, Patrick Schneider, and Marcus Stavrakakis. 2023. Let’s Talk About Strategy: Factors in establishing UX
strategy. In Usability Professionals 2023 (UP23). Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V., Rapperswil, Switzerland. doi:10.18420/muc2023-up-467
• UXQB. 2022. CPUX-M Curriculum – Essentials in UX and HCD Management. UXQB, Cologne. https://uxqb.org/
• Dominique Winter, Carolin Hausmann, Andreas Hinderks, and Jörg Thomaschewski. 2023. Development of a Shared UX Vision Based on UX
Factors Ascertained Through Attribution. International Journal of Interactive Multimedia and Artifcial Intelligence 8, 2 (2023), 247.
doi:10.9781/ijimai.2023.04.001