Strategy: Business Strategy

Most UX designers are familiar with and can employ frameworks such as Design Thinking and the Double Diamond method.

The Design Council developed the Double Diamond almost 20 years ago. It is a remarkable tool that guides product-development teams along a clear path. Read More

Most UX designers I know are constantly working to improve their craft through learning more about User Experience or experimenting with new and exciting UX tools and technologies. This is a positive quality that may be a byproduct of the UX design process itself, which is heavily predicated on constant improvement, experimentation, and innovation.

However, one of the most important ways of expanding your understanding of UX design is also one of the most underrated. In my experience, novice UX designers tend to avoid trying to understand the business objectives of their clients, which can complicate what are already new concepts to them. In contrast, I observe that most experienced UX designers seek to understand and absorb business objectives—ultimately, making that effort a major part of their UX design process.

In this column, I’ll break down the value of understanding your clients’ business objectives and show how this can not only improve your design process but your designs. Read More

This is an excerpt from Chapter 4 of Jim Kalbach’s new book The Jobs to Be Done Playbook: Align Your Markets, Organization, and Strategy Around Customer Needs. ©2020, Rosenfeld Media.

Chapter 4: Defining Value

In this chapter, you will learn about these plays:

• How to find unmet needs
• How to create goal-based personas
• A new way to compare competing solutions
• How to define a value proposition

The product marketing manager at a company I once worked for stood up in a meeting to present his strategy. He proceeded to describe the top customer needs that we should support with our solutions. I was thrilled to see him align to a customer-centric model. Read More