Summary
User-centric design and development mindset and maturity has been low in an enterprise context. UX departments struggle a lot to gain momentum and help organizations create better products in various different ways with RoI of their efforts being low. How might we increase the user-centric maturity and mindset of the enterprise in a more organic way and help as many product teams as possible while having insufficient UX specialists? Vasilieos will present a case study for top-down and bottom-up approach taken at LEGO with practical information, learnings and reflections so far.
Key Insights
-
•
In 2015, LEGO's UX was minimally supported and mainly technology-driven with little end-user input.
-
•
Rolling out LEGO-wide personas and training 300 IT colleagues helped raise UX awareness by 2018.
-
•
Without a UX vision or strategy, individual projects lacked coordinated impact or metrics.
-
•
The UX reboot involved treating the UX department like a business with clear responsibilities and expectations.
-
•
By 2019, 7 UX designers served about 400 products, forcing focus only on highest ROI products.
-
•
The User Experience Sandwich combines a top-down partnership with leadership and a bottom-up academy for organic mindset change.
-
•
Top-down UX partners embed in streams, set visions, define KPIs like System Usability Scale scores, and influence vendor software selection.
-
•
UX partners must rapidly develop domain knowledge, leadership skills, and resilience due to engagement with executives.
-
•
The User Experience Academy trains non-designers (e.g., product owners, developers) using an affinity-mapped curriculum covering discovery to delivery phases.
-
•
Embedding UX activities into teams increased products with UX design threefold, improved usability scores by 10+, and created internal UX ambassadors.
Notable Quotes
"User experience is not like the sauce you put on your steak to make it taste better; it's the actual protein within the steak."
"Instead of us begging to be involved, we set responsibilities and expectations for our involvement."
"With power comes a load of responsibility as a user experience partner embedded in a business stream."
"We push the System Usability Scale score as the KPI for all products within a stream."
"If vendor solutions are not usable from the start, we risk being stuck with unusable software for years."
"Designers need a thick skin because you often have to argue your case with senior VPs and directors."
"The User Experience Academy gives tools to non-designers so the change comes from within the product teams."
"We secured up to 20% of time for ambassadors to dedicate specifically to UX work."
"After interviews, the quieter I was, the more end users shared, which helped tremendously in designing new solutions."
"We tripled the number of products with some level of user experience design since launching the academy."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"The health of our planet directly influences our health and survival."
Alex Hurworth Bonnie John Fahd Arshad Antoine MarinDesigning a Contact Tracing App for Universal Access
October 23, 2020
"It’s really okay if this new position on your team is short-term only; we can provide the initial opportunity to get started on their career paths."
Laine Riley Prokay Lisa GordonCarving a Path for Early Career DesignOps Practitioners
September 9, 2022
"TripAdvisor is really nine major business units each thinking like sub companies instead of one end-to-end user experience."
Eniola OluwoleLessons From the DesignOps Journey of the World's Largest Travel Site
October 24, 2019
"Living personas refreshed constantly with new research allow others to connect with real customer behaviors."
Nathan ShedroffDouble Your Mileage: Use Your Research Strategically
March 31, 2020
"If you focus on desktop accessibility, you’re leaving out some of your most important users who may have mobile-only access."
Sam ProulxMobile Accessibility: Why Moving Accessibility Beyond the Desktop is Critical in a Mobile-first World
November 17, 2022
"The program creates predictability so teams know when to submit questions and when findings will come."
Feleesha SterlingBuilding a Rapid Research Program (Videoconference)
May 18, 2023
"Brand and product become two sides of the same coin when user insights have a seat at the top table."
Neil BarrieWidening the Aperture: The Case for Taking a Broader Lens to the Dialogue between Products and Culture
March 25, 2024
"A well framed project is a rare thing — it’s also a creative exercise that unleashes teams’ possibilities."
John DevanneyThe Design Management Office
November 6, 2017
"You need to understand stakeholders’ fears, motivations, and incentives to change hearts and minds."
Katy MogalBut Do Your Insights Scale?
March 12, 2021