In this talk, JJ Kercher, Head of Customer Experience for Appfolio, gives a walkthrough of the UX maturity model from her journey.

The UX maturity model (read from bottom to up) in various stages of an organization:

• Stage 1 - Unrecognised: UX is not essential and doesn't have focus.

• Stage 2 - Interested: UX is essential but receives little funding.

• Stage 3 - Invested: UX is crucial; formalised programs emerge.

• Stage 4 - Committed: UX is critical, and executives are actively involved.

• Stage 5 - Engaged: UX is one of the core tenets of the organization's strategy.

• Stage 6 - Embedded: Organization now embeds UX in its fabric and is no longer discussed separately.

Stage 2: Interested

• At this stage, typically, the design team (often just one person) is disproportionate to the number of engineers in the organization.

• UX is positioned as an advisory or consultant role.

• Design work is still tactical and has not gotten into a routine with recurring deliverables following processes whatsoever.

• In this stage, invest in:

Relationships:

• Be inclusive with the engineering team

• Learn what drives them

• Learn their language for effective communication and buy-in

• Tell meaningful stories that are both relevant and in an understandable context

Design practice:

• Focus heavily on Usability testing

• Get into the practice of whiteboard brainstorming sessions

• Use methods that are familiar to the engineering team (user flows and diagramming)

The design team:

• Very likely the leader is an individual contributor at this stage

• Ensure it doesn't break any existing working processes

• Adopt and learn research skills

Stage 4: Committed

• The team grows (or should grow) to fill the designer to engineer and product manager ratio gap

• Designers get embedded on existing functional/ business teams

• The need for UX specialisation emerges -- generalised UX practice no longer can hold the fort

• The design work still would be tactical and solution-oriented

• At this stage, invest in:

Relationships:

• Consistent design matters the most to the engineering team. Delivering that makes everybody's lives easier.

• Work closely with product management; discuss how to prioritize design.

• Focus on creating adjacent experiences such as help documentation

Design practice:

• Create a space or forum for cross-functional design

• Document processes, progress, and other auxiliary documents

• Invest in design systems

• Embrace tools to understand and share behavioral data like web, app analytics

The team:

• As a leader, invest time in building relationships, coaching the team, hiring bright talent and user/ customer evangelism

• Weekly stand-ups

• Formalise design reviews

• Involve the team in critical decisions like hiring

Stage 6: Embedded

• The product, by this stage, will be mature but would be growing, scaling, becoming complex

• The team will be more structured with individuals having clear career paths

• Reliable designer to product manager relationships will be established

• The organization also witnesses design and research consultation throughout

• More outside-in thinking across all customer/ user-facing roles

• UX informs product and business about strategies

• At this very mature stage, invest time in:

Relationships:

• Work Outcomes over the output generated by peer teams

• Work with the product management team to empower UX research as a method for needs vs. feature discovery

• Outside in thinking across all customer-facing roles

Design practice:

• Polish design systems (UI/ interactions/ copywriting)

• UX folks should gradually get into action by becoming product owners

• Bring in new methods to structurally solve problems (e.g., Design sprints)

• Focus heavily on journey mapping

The design team:

• Leadership should continue to focus on relationship building along with growing the leadership bench with lead and manager roles

• Create career paths for all in the team

• Ensure decision making remains flat in the team

• Grow the business know-how within designers