{"id":404,"date":"2017-05-03T04:19:22","date_gmt":"2017-05-03T04:19:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/measuringu.com\/ux-maturity\/"},"modified":"2021-08-12T08:39:14","modified_gmt":"2021-08-12T14:39:14","slug":"ux-maturity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/measuringu.com\/ux-maturity\/","title":{"rendered":"How Do You Measure UX Maturity?"},"content":{"rendered":"
A better user experience can lead to increased satisfaction, more loyal customers, and ultimately more revenue.<\/a><\/p>\n But what does it take to deliver a better user experience? Will applying one of the many methods<\/a>, or hiring the right UX designer or researcher suffice?<\/p>\n There is a general sense in the UX community that a mature UX organization will lead to a better user experience.<\/p>\n This sentiment is well founded as there is a history of assessing maturity for software organizations. The Capability Maturity Model <\/a>(CMM)\u2014 one of the earliest maturity models \u2014 was originally developed for the U.S. military as an objective tool to assess the ability of software contractors to get a job done.<\/p>\n A mature organization under the CMM was deemed qualified to deliver effective software (or at least deliver on the contract more successfully). The CMM is based on assessing processes and documentation, and is also the basis for other quality programs such as TQM and Six Sigma<\/a>.<\/p>\n While UX is related to software development, it\u2019s certainly not the same thing. To understand how much a mature organization may lead to better user experiences, UX needs its own model for measuring maturity.<\/p>\n There is surprisingly little data about what factors are necessary for \u201cmature\u201d UX, how UX maturity (or lack thereof) affects a company and the success of its products, and even what the levels of maturity should be.<\/p>\n A number of models attempt to categorize and define UX maturity (e.g., Nielsen, 2006<\/a>; Schaffer, 2004<\/a>). While there are some differences in the names and breakdowns given to these models, in general they consist of 5 to 7 levels that progress in a pattern similar to Jonathan Earthy\u2019s pioneering \u201cOrganisational Human Centeredness Scale<\/a>\u201d [pdf] (which goes from \u201cunrecognized\u201d to \u201cinstitutionalized\u201d) and similar to the CMM. The levels are:<\/p>\n These categories have some consensus about global indicators of maturity, such as having sufficient and dedicated budgets or resources, employing the right research methods, processes for when and how user-centered processes are involved, and company culture and attitude toward UX.<\/p>\n While the models have broad similarities, they offer few details about what characterizes mature UX. For example, what are the right methods, what is the \u201cbest\u201d ratio of UX designers to developers, should teams be centralized or distributed, and does any of this really matter?<\/p>\n It\u2019s not clear how these models were developed so practitioners are left to assume that authors have largely derived them through their own professional experiences rather than using empirical methods. Existing models have been useful in that they have inspired organizations to evolve and provided guidelines for increasing the focus on the user, but it\u2019s unclear whether they reflect how a UX organization actually affects user experiences. Unsurprisingly, some practitioners are skeptical of the validity of UX maturity models or even worse, see them as simply a sales gimmick.<\/p>\n To understand the characteristics of and value derived by UX maturity we wanted to take a more empirical approach at MeasuringU. We started with the ideas put forth in the existing maturity models and looked to validate these ideas by surveying a broad sample of the UX industry. A visualization of this process can be seen in Figure 1.<\/p>\nHistory of UX Maturity Modeling<\/h2>\n
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Limitations of Existing Models<\/h3>\n
Validating & Refining UX Maturity Models<\/h2>\n