Managing your UX as a strategic vs tactical thing- what is the correct approach?

by Frank Spillers
CEO/CXO @ Experience Dynamics; UXInnerCircle.com

Summary: UX is more than working on UI issues or usability fixes to a design. Instead, it is a cross-functional, collaborative, and organizationally embedded process that requires high-level strategy as well as tactical execution.

Since personas seem to be nearly universally familiar, let’s explore this issue from the eyes of a persona: Tactical Tony vs Strategic Sara.

Tactical Tony

Tactical Tony likes to execute UX

Sometimes he literally fires UX designers or contractors if he doesn’t need them anymore. But mainly when times are good or competitors are gaining ground, Tony keeps a UX designer on the team.

Tony plays with a tactical UX mindset. What does this mean?

Tactical UX mindset:

• Get the essential work done
• UX to support the Product + Engineering team
• Focus on specifics of improving UI/UX
• Move fast and do UX in Figma (or other tool)
• UX can be turned on and off depending on the project
• UX is a lower priority or a nice to have — core work (development) is first
• UX can be done with one person or an outside agency
• There’s no time to learn about the UX process or attend user test sessions (leave that to the professionals)
• Others in the team don’t need to know what the UX person does, they just work with them to extract assets

Tactical Tony sees UX as a last-minute thing. It’s reactive. He waits until customer complaints get loud enough to prioritize usability. After all, Agile is about putting software into the marketing and getting user feedback, and iterating on that feedback, right?

Looking beyond wireframes to research, Tony sees UX as mostly encompassing user testing. He thrives on Lean UX ideas because they allow him to cut corners, “fail fast”, test with 5 users (or less), and address UX only when it is sorely needed or requested.

In Tony’s view, UX Designers, for the most part, are intuitive about screen layouts and design — the better ones can do graphic or visual design. Tony and his management believe, that generating design assets is the main value-add to engineering or Product management efforts.

Tactical UX is a flawed view and one largely based on coping with the demands of software development. Doing tactical UX means you are fixated on outputs, not outcomes. Worse, you are moving so swiftly toward this singular goal (a new design, an asset like an icon set, or new images), you don’t allow time to explore or mature your UX process. No time for improvement, no time for measurement, and no time to spend with users in their ‘problem space’. After all, thinks Tony, what does that have to do with the already-defined feature set and agreed-upon MVP scope?

Strategic Sara

Strategic Sara likes to avoid repeating lessons learned

Unlike Tony, who is focused on keeping UX narrowly defined as an extension of an ‘artist for the interface’, Sara understands UX is more than just UI. Strategic Sara realizes that in order to get good design decisions out of her UX designers, they need regular contact with users. Her focus is on continually improving how UX is done. She views UX with a strategic mindset.

Strategic UX mindset:

• UI’s come from a process that is more than Figma (or other tool)
• Help us understand if we are solving the right problem by spending time with users
• UX research is not just user testing (evaluative) but also generative (Field Studies generate insights) to turn the ‘problem space’ upside down.
• UX can do a better job of supporting business needs, not just interface features
• UX process needs to continuously be refined and operationalized
• Time needs to be allowed to improve processes
• UX touches not just the UX team, but the entire team, and everyone has to be doing user advocacy (like Apple)
• UX needs specialized roles like UX Writer or UX Researcher, it’s not all up to a UX Designer
• Sara sees UX as a long game that adds value to business goals. She understands that there are tactical aspects to UX but also values the strategic aspects and therefore champions it at the management level. Part of her job is to continuously educate stakeholders, and senior managers on the real value and nature of UX.

Sara’s focus with UX is to gain ROI. She wants results based on outcomes that take the organization and team in a direction that improves their decision-making, ability to respond to change in the market (like competitors), and to innovate by meeting unaddressed user needs or opportunities.

It’s not that Sara is better or smarter than Tony. She has the same tactical demands for UX assets and outputs, and yes, pretty pictures that stakeholders demand. The difference is her understanding that there is more to UX from a business standpoint than a simple workhorse. She looks for opportunities to define the right problem that makes customers or employees' lives remarkably better while charting new territory for the business. She’s not just a mender, she sees UX as requiring leadership to help the business pivot toward more efficient and profitable habits of working, such as creating Design Systems and operationalizing Research (ResearchOps) and design (DesignOps) tasks and activities to free up time to work on solving larger problems.

Strategic UX is about being equipped to respond to both tactical demands while simultaneously delivering value for the business with UX. It is a long game that says no to reducing things to a UI or feature ‘MVP’ requirement. The strategic approach is about improving how you do UX so you are current with best practices, faster at doing it, and less burdened by the time wasted with organizational bias, misuse of UX, and inefficiency. Strategic UX takes tactical UX and helps it grow a wider perspective while aiming it in the direction of healthier ROI for the business.

Postscript: This is a slice from my upcoming book on UX management, read an early manuscript and give me feedback. Join my beta reader list here.

About the author: Frank Spillers, CEO/ CXO of Experience Dynamics, a leading UX consulting firm with Fortune 500 clients worldwide.

For over 20 years, Frank has been a seasoned UX consultant, Researcher, Designer, and Trainer. He is an award-winning expert in improving the design of digital products, services, and experiences. Frank is a Subject Matter Expert in UX Design, UX Management, Accessibility, Emotion Design, Service Design, Localization UX, Lean UX, VR/ AR UX Design. He provides private corporate training and offers courses to the largest online design organization in the world (Interaction Design Foundation). In 2001, Frank founded UX consulting firm Experience Dynamics. He provides deep learning opportunities at UX Inner Circle.