Column: Enterprise UX

Making a distinction between Customer Experience (CX) and User Experience (UX) often feels like an introspective debate that matters intensely to practitioners, but seems academic to everyone else. But here’s the thing: the relationship between them defines how companies build products that people want to use and digital user experiences that keep customers well-satisfied and productive. The collaboration, or lack thereof, between CX and UX teams shapes nearly every digital interaction that people experience today.

In this column, which is Part 1 of a two-part series, we’ll delve into the following topics:

• Differentiating Customer Experience and User Experience
• Exploring the evolution of and convergence between Customer Experience and User Experience
• Proposing collaborative methods Read More

You’ve probably heard the popular saying that a picture is worth a thousand words. As UX design professionals, we make our living by communicating clearly through the use of visual elements and affordances, thus, enabling the productivity of others. If we do our job well, we seldom need to rely on using many words. Instead, the visualization skills that we hone through our profession benefit not only the users of the products we design; if we leverage them correctly, they also make our colleagues, stakeholders, and ourselves more productive.

Productive teams are typically teams that communicate well and have a shared understanding of what they’re trying to accomplish. Their shared understanding often stems from expressing their ideas and concepts in unique ways that gain stronger footholds in the minds of others, which fuels the team’s greater productivity. While there are many methods of expressing ideas and concepts that could aid our productivity, we’ve found that creating mind maps is one of the most effective techniques because of its versatility and scalability. Read More

Human beings are drawn to stories, which help us make sense of our world by letting us share others’ experiences as though they were our own. We feel characters’ struggles as they navigate difficult challenges and rejoice with them when they finally achieve their goals or share their sorrows if they do not. Stories help us learn to feel empathy—a critical trait for any UX professional.

Most importantly, stories are memorable. According to Jennifer Aaker, Professor of Marketing at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, using a story to convey information is up to “22 times more memorable than facts alone.”

Telling a story can help influence the opinions of others in ways that few other modes of communication can. The value of storytelling extends to how we present ourselves and our abilities professionally. Having participated in dozens of on-site portfolio reviews over the years—sitting on both sides of the review table—I’ve found that the most effective UX-portfolio presentations have one thing in common: the candidate told a story. Read More