Thirteen Key Insights from the UX STRAT Conference

Originally published on LinkedIn on September 22nd, 2016 by Mark Hewitt.

 UX STRAT Conference in Providence, RI. The two-day event consisted of speakers, workshops and networking with some of the biggest players in user experience, customer experience and service design. In attendance were companies from a range of industries including insurance, financial services, government and consumer products.

Below are 13 Key Insights from the UX STRAT Conference:

  • BX (Brand Experience) is an aspect of corporate and business strategy. The alphabet of lingo UX/CX/XD/Service Design is confusing the overarching experience strategy. 
EQe_Brand Experience.jpg

 

  • Video will assist to capture, curate, and story tell life moments and emotion. Be moment-focused and learn to tell stories. 

 

  • Design and test for user behavior, not for user needs. Experience design should be a competitive advantage.
  • Shared value - at its core - focuses the company's management strategy on creating business value by identifying and addressing social problems that intersect with their business, human experience, and human capital.
  • Jobs-to-be-done is a perspective, lens and framework to look at a goal or need from the customer standpoint based on what needs to be done. Frame every design problem in a Job, focusing on the triggering event or situation, the motivation and goal, and the intended outcome. To learn more about Jobs To Be Done, read our article.
  • Five keywords that characterize Great UX teams: Intuitive, Simple, Quality, Impact & Impressive. 

 

  • Develop a collaborative process to build concepts that demo value and prove solution feasibility. The process of prototyping and experimenting during hack-a-thons or design 'jams' builds culture and rapport.
  • Four models to support the omni-channel journey: goal/strategic planning, decision-point/intentional design, commitment/measured results, execution/consolidated return (see image below). 

 

  • The Overview Effect: Blend both big and small data to see the whole system to develop differentiated products.
  • Digital design and usability are rooted in empathy, can progress through an adaptive learning process and result in adaptive UX and ideal personalization.
  • A design mindset accelerates innovation. Focus on bringing together the right team (people), process and people. 

 

  • Experience mapping from the customer's perspective drives internal adoption of UX, helps organizations identify strategic opportunities and generates an innovation focus based on defined customer pain-points and research.
  • Problem framing is problem solving. UX strategy for increasingly disruptive future states and behaviors must be grounded in customer centricity, data, digital and evoking emotion to create value.

Bonus Take Away: And finally to close things out, Providence was a great city in which to host the intimate conference experience and the city boasts a surprisingly vibrant restaurant scene. Oberlin, Birch, North and Persimmon are but four of the many great reasons to give the town a fresh look and the Biltmore Hotel is an old classic hotel with a warm, welcoming feel, a charming character and great facilities.

If you are interested in looking-through the presentations from UX STRAT, please head over to Slideshare. Did I miss something you think was worth including? Tweet it at me using the @MarekKV handle and include the hashtag #uxstrat.

Mark Hewitt