Key takeaways
✨ UX maturity has the power to transform the way organizations deliver products and services.
🔍 It acts as a barometer that shows the extent to which an organization has integrated a user-centered approach within its practices and its culture.
📈 In the most advanced level of UX maturity, user experience is the driver of the business strategy.
UX maturity is all about measuring how integrated user experience practices are within an organization. Understanding the notion of UX maturity gives companies a unique opportunity to identify the level at which they have embedded UX into their workflows and identify areas for growth.
In this article, you will find everything you need to know about UX maturity, including the most common UX maturity models, the typical maturity levels, and our top tips for measuring your organization’s UX maturity.
What is UX maturity?
UX maturity is a barometer that shows the extent to which an organization has integrated a user-centered approach within its practices and culture.
As a rule of thumb, an organization with a high UX maturity is indicative of an environment where product development is driven by user research and user insights.
It is important to note that UX maturity is a journey and companies tend to progress through different stages of UX maturity moving from more reactive practices to an integrated and systematic approach toward user-centered design.
Organizational UX maturity
Organizational UX maturity is a barometer showing how well UX practices are not only understood but also implemented across the board within an organization.
Indicatively, companies at high maturity levels tend to integrate UX principles into the overall product strategy. In those organizations you will also find a dedicated UX team that drives product development.
Team UX maturity
On the other hand, a mature UX team structure is indicative of how well different teams and departments have adopted UX practices into their workflows.
Teams with high UX maturity are all about breaking silos and working collaboratively in an effort to standardize UX practices and processes across the board making user insights the main driver of the development.
Why is UX maturity important?
UX maturity is of critical importance as it has the power to transform the way organizations deliver products and services.
Organizations at high UX maturity levels have adopted an integrated approach to user-centered design, and are most likely to meet and exceed customer expectations as well as create products with market fit.
Simply put, mature UX organizations have the tools required to uncover pain points and solve real problems for their users.
Hence, UX maturity can lead to more efficient processes throughout the organization as well as lower the risk of costly redesigns or products that fail to meet user expectations.
Eugenia Jongewaard, a senior UX/CX consultant who’s responsible for developing UX maturity at Nestle Global Digital Hub, said it promptly:
Always advocate for the users. Be conscious of the power of your job and take responsibility.
Saying “no” and asking “why” is a design skill. Don´t stop learning!
How to measure UX maturity?
Assessing UX maturity is a great way for organizations to gauge their UX capabilities as they stand now and create a roadmap to track down their UX maturity journey.
The best way to measure your organization’s UX maturity is to benchmark it against a well-known maturity model.
This will help you understand your position in the UX matrix based on best practices. There is an abundance of UX maturity models out there but here are some of our top picks:
NNG UX Maturity Model
The Nielsen Norman Group (NNG) UX maturity model where UX maturity is defined in six different stages ranging from absent to user-driven.
This UX maturity model provides organizations with a UX maturity roadmap that can help them structure their UX efforts with the end goal of a fully user-centered approach to product development.
In this model, each level builds on the last one offering a detailed and systematic approach to how organizations can evolve their UX practices.
Jared Spool’s UX Maturity Model
Jared Spool’s UX maturity model measures how design within an organization moves from a low-priority activity to a necessity for business growth. In this UX maturity model, Jared Spool highlights the need for cultural change when it comes to how design is treated within a business.
Usability Maturity Scale by Jonathan Earthy
Jonathan Earthy’s Usability Maturity Scale consists of five maturity stages, ranging from organizations that engage in sporadic or informal use of UX practices to organizations with a fully integrated user-centered approach to design.
Jonathan Earthy’s Usability Maturity model stresses the need to establish structured processes and provide training to ensure that UX maturity is being fostered within an organization.
Design Maturity Matrix
The design maturity Matrix is all about measuring the influence that design can have within the organization. According to this matrix, a high design maturity reflects a culture where design is an integral business component.
Forrester’s CX Function Maturity Assessment
Forrester’s CX Function Maturity Assessment Acer tool shows how customer experience aligns with UX maturity. This UX maturity model is an invaluable tool for companies focusing on customer experience as a unique selling proposition.
This assessment shows how CX can progress from a reactive practice to a highly proactive user-centered culture.
UX maturity levels
These are the main UX maturity levels that an organization can be categorized into:
Absent/Unrecognized
At this maturity level, organizations are yet to recognize the importance of UX and the impact that it can have on users and businesses alike. UX practices at this stage are absent leading to disappointing user experience.
A discussion among UX professionals revealed that it can be quite hard to move forward from the 1st level of UX maturity. Many professionals have highlighted that the obstacle to moving forward is the lack of leadership support.
To improve UX maturity at this level, you need to start by raising awareness around the value of UX using simple language that everybody can grasp and creating a UX mission & vision statement to start moving in the right direction.
Another great tip here is to start gathering user insights so that you can highlight pain points and areas for improvement and showcase them to the team.
Limited/Developer-Centered
At this level, organizations might have started to recognize the value of UX principles but often have an unstructured sporadic, and reactive approach when it comes to UX practices.
To improve the UX maturity at this level, you can start by educating your development team on UX basics as well as introducing a small budget for user testing to measure usability testing metrics and form a more structured approach to collecting user feedback.
Emergent/Exploratory
Organizations at this level explore UX practices and start to test out their design solutions. Although organizations at this level recognize the criticality of UX design, their practices might not be consistent or fully embedded.
Establishing a dedicated UX team and implementing a structured approach to user research might be the best next steps to improve UX maturity at this level.
Structured/Dedicated Team
Organizations of this level have a dedicated UX team as well as structured processes that cover the full UX design process. Additionally, they have a clear understanding of user needs and how those can be integrated into product development.
A quiz conducted by the Nielson Norman Group revealed that companies that are on the 4th UX maturity level usually start building UX into their operations and culture.
Investing in more advanced UX tools and fostering cross-functional team collaboration is a great way to improve your UX maturity at this level.
Integrated/User-Centered
At this level, UX is fully embedded into the organization’s culture. Here, UX design is an essential component of business.
Some of our top tips here in order to improve is to integrate customer mapping into your research as well as start establishing UX processes across different teams.
Embedded/Experience-Driven
In this final level of UX maturity, user experience drives the business strategy and product development. UX is embedded into every aspect of the organization.
One of our top tips to improve here is to adopt key KPIs to measure the positive impact that UX maturity has on business goals.
Factors influencing UX maturity in organizations
Here are some of the key factors influencing UX maturity in organizations:
Leadership support for UX research
Support from leadership is the alpha and the omega when it comes to advancing your UX maturity. A leadership that understands the value of UX can help with budget allocation and can commit to integrating user-centered practices.
💡 Pro Tip
Proving the value of UX research to stakeholders and securing their buy-in is still one of the most common issues for UX pros.We’ve conducted a survey and summarized the best practices and advice from UX leaders on how to get support for UX research.
➡️ Find them in this report: Dealing with Resistance to UX Research [Report]
Organizational culture
Organizational culture can make or break your UX maturity journey. A culture that values UX can foster an environment of continuous learning and innovation that is driven by user data.
Budget and timing constraints
Budgets and timing constraints are also factors that can hinder your UX maturity effort as they can have a domino effect on the available UX resources.
A limited budget means that there might be equally limited funding for UX practices while time constraints might mean that the organization is not willing to integrate in-depth research into their development process.
The presence of a dedicated UX research team
The presence of a dedicated UX research team can be the driver of continuous UX improvement by performing usability testing – enabling the implementation of UX practices across the organization.
UX research integration in development & design
Last but not least, integrating UX research into the development and design lifecycle can ensure that the user is at the center of all operations. This integration of user-centered design can also foster an environment of regular feedback loops that can improve user experience and promote UX maturity.
Assessing UX maturity in your team
Here are some tried-and-tested ways of assessing UX maturity within your team:
Benchmarking against a UX maturity model
Using one of the above-mentioned common UX maturity models can help you assess your current UX maturity level, as well as help you set incremental and achievable goals for improvement.
Self-assessment surveys
Self-assessment surveys are another great way to understand what your team’s perceptions are when it comes to UX and where you stand in the UX maturity matrix.
Assess the development approach to UX
Assessing how integrated UX practices are into your product design and development cycles can give you great insights into the UX maturity of your team, so make sure to keep an eye out!
Examine the UX team’s position in organizational culture
Last but not least, analyzing and examining the role that UX has in your team when it comes to your organizational culture is a great indicator of your UX maturity level. Typically in high-maturity organizations, UX practices are a ‘must-have’ and not ‘a nice-to-have’.
Wrapping up
UX maturity is a reflection of how well an organization adopts user-centered practices. By understanding the notion of UX maturity, you have a unique opportunity to measure the UX maturity level of your organization.
This way, you will be able to identify areas for growth and implement an actionable roadmap leading to a high UX maturity level where UX is integrated into the product development process.
The most important challenge is shifting the culture to a more user-centric way of working. UX maturity – it’s not just about hiring UX designers or restructuring the organization, it’s about installing a user-centric culture, which is a journey that takes time.
So, we have to be patient and take our time to walk the process!
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