The document outlines 8 stages of corporate maturity towards user experience (UX). Stage 1 involves hostility towards UX while stage 8 is a user-driven corporation where user data determines projects and company direction. It describes each stage, including typical timescales, characteristics, and how to progress to the next stage. For example, stage 2 involves developer-centered UX for 2-3 years while stage 5 establishes an official UX group led by a manager for 6-7 years. The conclusion emphasizes addressing each stage in order and finding the right leverage points to advance an organization's UX maturity over time.

1. TOWARDS CORPORATE UX
MATURITY
24/02/2011
CHRISTOPHER KHALIL,
DIRECTOR OF USER EXPERIENCE
NEWS DIGITAL MEDIA

2. INTRO…
A framework for determining your organisational maturity
Neilsen 2006
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/maturity.html
Goal is to become a User Driven Organisation
– User data helps determines projects that are funded
– User research helps determines company direction
– Experience design extended beyond IxD into Customer
Experience

3. STAGES OF MATURITY
Stage 1: Hostility toward UX. This stage can last decades.
Stage 2: Developer-centred UX. Two to three years.
Stage 3: Skunkworks UX. Two to three years.
Stage 4: Dedicated UX budget. Two to three years.
Stage 5: Managed UX. Six to seven years.
Stage 6: A Systematic UX process. Six to seven years.
Stage 7: Integrated user-centred design. Insufficient data.
Stage 8: User-driven corporation.

4. STAGE 1: HOSTILITY TOWARD UX
In this mindset, humans are irrelevant—they're told to
use the system, regardless of whether doing so is easy or
pleasant.
Throwback to early days of computing where hardware
costs etc meant it made sense to subjugate people to
computers needs.
Hard to change behaviour.
Timescale: This stage can last decades.

5. STAGE 2: DEVELOPER-CENTRED UX
Team relies on its own intuition about what constitutes
good UX
Works ok if mental model matches audience – i.e.
developing tools such as IDE’s etc
For every other case this is a bad idea
We know too much about the problem space
BUT executives generally responsive to the idea of UX
Logic, flattery, persuasion, analytics
Timescale: Two to three years.

6. STAGE 3: SKUNKWORKS UX.
No official recognition of UX, nor is there an approved
budget
Organization realises need to be customer focused
Guerrilla testing prevalent
Activities are ad hoc and driven by UX advocates
Primitive but effective skunkwork techniques employed
Rely on results to progress: analytics, AB test, survey
To prevent being overlooked, save the initial design ideas,
clumsy as they may seem, and show before/after
comparisons to document the UX advances.
Timescale: Two to three years.

7. STAGE 4: DEDICATED UX BUDGET
Someone higher up makes the UX aspects of product quality a
higher priority.
A dedicated budget for UX allows UX activities to be planned
There are dedicated UX staff
Main UX method is User Testing (but usually happens late in
process)
A budget to recruit participants
The team spends most of its time fixing individual design mistakes,
and no time at increasing organisational maturity.
To move to next stage: Collect ammunition, higher conversion
rates, fewer calls to call centre, increasedproductivty - involve
senior stakeholders in sessions
Timescale: Two to three years.

8. STAGE 5: MANAGED UX.
Official UX group, led by Manager
Studies are conducted more consistently as the UX group refines its
methodology
The group archives and compiles the findings of UX reports.
The company has a person whose job it is to think about UX across
the organization, in order to increase organisational maturity and
leverage existing UX staff for more strategic purposes
To move to next stage: Use budget on high profile projects aim for
spectacular wins, evangelise, participatory design, involve senior
stakeholders in sessions
Timescale: Six to seven years

9. STAGE 6: A SYSTEMATIC UX PROCESS.
The company has recognized the need for an actual user-centred design process, with
multiple activities and milestones
Iterative design is more common because the company realizes that the best UI quality
requires several rounds of UX
Projects are prioritized according to the business value of their user experience.
Even projects that don't get a lot of UX resources go through at least some form of UX
review before they're approved for release
The UX budget large enough that key projects receive sufficient resources
The company starts doing field studies
To move to the next stage
Use participatory & iterative design to bring stakeholders on the journey.
Lobby for Field Studies
Timescale: Six to seven years

10. STAGE 7: INTEGRATED USER-CENTRED DESIGN.
Field studies, as a form of very early user research is in the DNA.
Each step in the development process is infused with user data,
including the project definition and the requirements phase.
Beyond simply estimating user experience quality, the company
tracks quality through quantitative UX metrics.
Each project has defined UX goals that these measurements must
surpass for the design to be greenlighted for release.
The company begins to employ UX data to determine what it
should build.

11. STAGE 8: USER-DRIVEN CORPORATION.
User data now determines the type of projects that are funded.
User research determines the company’s overall direction and
priorities. The concept of total user experience is extended beyond
the screen to other customer-company interaction.
The company uses the same UX methods, but these now affect
corporate strategy & activities beyond interaction design.
Corporate decision-making takes a mixed methody approach
including data from behavioural observation of real users—data
about what customers do.

12. CONCLUSION
The timing obviously differs among organizations
Start-ups are lucky and can begin the maturity process at
stage 3 or stage 4
Steps must be addressed in order, hard to skip a stage
Too many simultaneous changes are likely to result in
failure
Find the best ‘buttons’ in your organisation to press and
keep punching them.