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In defense of templates: An overlooked tool for engagement and productivity

How templates benefit both users and businesses

Meghan Wenzel
UX Collective
4 min readJul 27, 2021
We see thumbnails of various templates, including a mind map, kanban framework, quick retrospective, user story map, customer journey, flowchart, and brainwriting.
https://miro.com/app/dashboard/

How many of us have procured fancy, (expensive) new tools at work, only to play around with them a few times and then largely abandon them? I know I have. Enterprise products must strike a delicate balance between power and learnability, enabling users to meet their goals while not overwhelming them.

Enter templates. Recently I’ve seen templates introduced strategically to guide, support, and inspire users. Templates show users what’s possible, provide optional structure, and offer inspiration to get the creative juices flowing because sometimes there’s nothing more intimidating than a blank canvas.

By reducing cognitive load and lowering the barrier to entry, templates empower users to be more engaged and productive, which can in turn increase customer loyalty, retention, and overall revenue. Templates truly are a win-win.

Templates increase user engagement and productivity

  • Templates can reduce the barrier to entry. Instead of feeling overwhelmed and tempted to procrastinate, templates offer users a light weight way to get started. You don’t have to generate great ideas out of thin air, you can simply…

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Published in UX Collective

We believe designers are thinkers as much as they are makers. Curated stories on UX, Visual & Product Design. https://linktr.ee/uxc

Written by Meghan Wenzel

UX Researcher and Strategist — “It’s not the story you tell that matters, but the one others remember and repeat”

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