Break down barriers through covert UX research

6 tips to overcome a resistant company culture to get the user insights you need

Photo by Chris Yang on Unsplash

Over the past 13 years, I’ve worked at several small companies (as well as a couple of big ones). I’ve been the first UX hire, or the first UX rehire after a time without UX resources, tasked to build out the UX practice. I usually spent the first while doing hands-on work too.

When you’re coming into a company that’s at a level 1 (absent) or level 2 (limited) in terms of UX maturity, you’re going to get some common questions:

• Why can’t you just design something?
• Why do you need to talk to users?
• Don’t you know what will work?
• I thought you were the expert?

Read more about UX maturity here:

The 6 Levels of UX Maturity

This attitude isn’t uncommon. Despite much hard work by thousands of individuals and many strides in our industry, people and companies still don’t understand the value of UX. You’ll see that design teams are one of the first to go in the redundancies happening recently. We’re still a ‘luxury’. Surely the developers can just build something without upfront design... right?

Building the wrong thing fast isn’t faster in the long run. Nor is it good for business. If users have a crappy experience the first time they use your software, they might not come back — we don’t get a second chance for a first impression. Good design is vital and thus it’s part and parcel of the job to advocate for UX and research. To explain the benefits to stakeholders. To find the argument that will work for them to see the value. But sometimes, frankly, it’s an uphill battle.

I’ve had success in embedding UX in companies. Some companies are more willing to listen than others. I’d classify at…