Growth Hacking and User Experience: A love story?

Not quite….

Growth hackers

find creative solutions to

growth-related problems

within a product.

User Experience

experiments and tests to

engineer a great experience

and solve problems for

everyone using a product.

Digital marketers promote

brands and increase

conversions through

targeted, measurable, and

interactive techniques.

Digital Marketing Growth hackers User Experience

Who came first….

Sean Ellis coined the term "growth hacker" in 2010

Growth Hacking

Don Norman popularised the term “user experience” while working at

Apple in the 1990’s and companies like Xerox’s PARC were conducting

formal research on computer-human interaction since 1970s.

User Experience

Growth hackers User Experiencevs

5 years +20 years

User Experience is fundamentally about the relationship

between people and technology. More than that, it’s about

identifying and designing that relationship.

….and getting businesses to generate commercial value too

Next to its scientific roots, the User Experience field itself has been

around long enough to have developed its own best practices.

Growth Hackers tends to focus on tweaking

product or existing marketing to acquire users.

It's easy to get Growth Hacking and UX convoluted

since both advance their goals through understanding

human behaviour.

Growth hackers User Experiencevs

“How can we increase conversions or brand

affinity?”

“What do our customers need, and how can we best

serve them?”

Growth hackers User Experiencevs

Business view User view

QualityQuantity

Improves experiencesIncrease conversions

Making things people wantMaking people want things

All Testing (Quantitive / Qualitative)A/B Testing

StrategicTactical

Long TermShort Term

“If the goal of growth hacking is to

create value for the business,

then the goal of user experience is to

create value for the customer.”

While Growth Hacking and UX are not core-value compatible, they

are powerful assets to a company if managed wisely and held in

proper balance.

Growth Hackers and UX Designers should work together

because we share the common interests of understanding

human behaviour and building brand loyalty.

User Experience can help Growth Hackers get valuable

intelligence around how to sell or position a product more

effectively.

A Growth Hacker should never ask a UX Designer to…

“GoDaddy” a website, stuffing it full of unnecessary

crap that annoys and frustrates in the name of an

extra $7.99 a year.

Nor should one be asked to conceive of solutions that

exists solely to trick the user into a poor decision.

These types of experiences are counteractive.

The way that people interact with brands has changed.

It’s not enough to simply tell people you have a product

they want or need.

They need to experience it.

The need to feel it.

They need to love it.

And that’s exactly what User Experience will help do.

Can UX Designers and Growth Hacking work together?

Absolutely.

But only if UX Designers are given license to truly do their jobs.

The biggest misconception about User Experience is that it

is about creating beautiful interfaces.

That is just a small part…

There are two type of User Experience Designers.

Generalist and Specialist

I am a specialist.

Also known as T-Shaped.

Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO, defended this approach

(IDEO is an award-winning global human-centered design firm

founded in 1991)

Researcher CopywriterPsychology Product DesignStrategist Information

ArchitectService Design Engineer

User Experience Broad Knowledge

UX

Dee

p Sk

ills

User Interface

Wireframes/ Prototype

Graphic Design

Mobile/ Apps

Desktop

Wearables

Interaction Design

If there is just one thing you can take from all of this…

While Growth Hacking can generate revenue for the next two quarters….

Building a product/service that provides great service will

generate revenue for the next two years.

User Experience is its own form of growth hacking.

User Experience + Growth Hacking = Magic