The State of UX: Five Lessons from 2021 to Accelerate Digital Experience in 2022
Summary
In this session, UserZoom reveals findings from its annual State of UX report, identifying what’s getting in the way of UX teams becoming a critical part of decision-making, how to overcome these challenges and make a demonstrably positive impact on business performance.
Key Insights
-
•
Only about 55-60% of organizations have an established UX research process embedded into their development lifecycle.
-
•
A large number of product decisions are made daily without user insights, relying on assumptions.
-
•
Securing executive buy-in and identifying appropriate success metrics remain top challenges for user research teams.
-
•
User experience metrics beyond basic site analytics are underutilized but critical to comprehensive product understanding.
-
•
Demand for UX research is increasing rapidly, with 70% of respondents reporting growth, accelerated by digital disruption and the pandemic.
-
•
Design hiring is outpacing UX research hiring at a rate of 34%, leading designers to conduct more tactical research themselves.
-
•
This democratization of research among designers unlocks capacity for more strategic work by dedicated researchers.
-
•
Time and budget constraints, especially around participant recruitment and study logistics, remain major obstacles to research.
-
•
Mixed-method approaches combining qualitative and quantitative techniques are used by nearly 70% of researchers, primarily focused on usability testing.
-
•
Organizations are often focused on tactical usability validation rather than strategic discovery or complex measurement research.
Notable Quotes
"For many organizations, research is really not embedded completely and consistently into the development process."
"There’s a huge proportion of product decisions being made without any user insights, based on assumptions."
"Getting executive buy-in is so critical to the success of research, yet it remains a challenge for many."
"User experience metrics can give you a well-rounded perspective beyond mere site analytics."
"We saw one insurance form took 14 minutes to fill, and that was longer than competitor journeys, helping identify a clear target for improvement."
"Demand for user research is increasing dramatically, but design hiring is outpacing research hiring by 34%."
"Designers are becoming increasingly interested in doing their own tactical user research within sprint cycles."
"Time constraints and budget limitations are the top obstacles to effective research today."
"Nearly 70% of organizations use mixed-method research approaches, mainly focused on usability testing and validation."
"UX research is a journey, not just a switch you flick on; many challenges you face have been experienced by others in the community."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"Tech workers in the UK are five times more depressed than the UK average, with stress killing creativity."
Dr. Karl JeffriesThe Science of Creativity for DesignOps
January 8, 2024
"I never want to walk into a review with my stakeholders at the SVP level and see something for the first time."
Amy MarquezINVEST: Discussion
June 15, 2018
"The weakest insight method might win simply because of the relationship to the power structure."
Steve Portigal Chris Chapo Kelly Goto Christian RohrerDiscussion
May 13, 2015
"Some needs proved full-time, so hybrid staffing models are often short term or mixed part-time."
Alicia MootyDesign Staffing Models
September 30, 2021
"Puppetry lets you communicate like, I don’t like what you said, how come you said that to me."
Ana Maria Montero Barrantes Aditi Dhar Michelle Kaplan Nate Osborne Matt LaurenceThe Authentic UX Talent Show
January 8, 2024
"Simply asking stakeholders what success looks like for them in a project is a powerful way to start meaningful conversations."
Lada Gorlenko Sharbani Dhar Sébastien Malo Rob Mitzel Ivana Ng Michal Anne RogondinoTheme 1: Discussion
January 8, 2024
"Research isn’t linear; it’s messy and modular, so your tools have to reflect that fluidity."
Sofia QuinteroThe Product Philosophy Behind EnjoyHQ
March 10, 2021
"People don’t actually hate innovation; they like their jobs and feel threatened by change."
Laura KleinUnique challenges of innovation in enterprises
April 23, 2020
"Without Jim, what we're going to see today would have been a lot worse."
Andrew MichaelBuilding a Product Insights Team
March 10, 2022
