UX is all the rage. There’s a growing education infrastructure supporting fledgling UXers, and companies are competing for the best UX talent available.
The problem is that there’s still widespread ignorance about what UX is, and how it fits into a company’s culture or process. That’s the rub: People don’t realize that the culture itself has to change; The culture has to start with UX not the other way around.
For example, most teams adhere to agile processes, but struggle with how to grudgingly include UX. Business operates from a place of urgency, they need to release something – anything within a sprint cycle. And UX will just slow them down and prevent them from shipping an iteration. This is the established culture. (I have strong feelings about how Agile is misinterpreted, too. Some other time…) The focus then shifts to the conflict of UX integration rather than working on the next iteration of the product. Teams struggle to figure it out while in the throes of a sprint cycle, wasting time and money. This also creates frustration, and friction between team members trying to navigate this integration.
This is why it’s so important for managers, and leaders to get more involved. They can bring a level of authority, and guidance to the process of establishing a healthy UX culture. The process should be inclusive, but leadership is instrumental in guiding and shaping it. It’s hard enough to ship deliverables in a sprint cycle without having to manage up or educate team members about the what and why of UX. Managers can use their influence to help establish a UX culture that is optimized for success.
We all have roles to play in how to successfully create healthy UX processes and cultures. But without the support of business, and leadership it’s much harder than it needs to be.
Here’s a great article about fitting UX into Agile.
https://blinkux.com/ideas/agile-ux-research