Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat. -Sun Tzu
The beautiful thing about the world of product design and the “user experience” way of thinking is that businesses often begin to orient themselves around the way their products impact others. The details matter and designers become empathetic to all of the ways people and systems interact with those details. A struggle that arises, then, is that the work is infinite. How does one decide where to provide value first, and where to channel design energy most often? The potential for deliverables are endless, but which ones will make an impact, and which are a waste of time?
All of these answers (and the importance of the questions themselves) vary depending on the field each business exists in, the size or the organization, and the value it is trying to provide in the world. User experience strategy involves the unique approach each team will take to deal with these questions and problems. It isn’t just about how products will be designed, produced, marketed or sold (though all of these things are addressed), but instead how the concept of user experience will fit into the framework of the business or organization at hand. How will this team prioritize user experience? How can user experience principles be implemented and who will be responsible for them? How will UX itself be internally assessed, prioritized, developed, and expanded? How do the business strategy, product value, and the user themselves (using research and considering their experience) fit together practically?
Take the time to consider how these questions might take shape within your organization or influence your processes differently! Every business and organization can begin to implement UX strategy on some level and save themselves some busywork in the long run.