INTRODUCTION - UserZoom's UX Resource Centerinfo.userzoom.com/.../enterpise-ux-survey-2018.pdf · organizations. We predict that this will continue to grow in coming years. Speaking

The State of UX in the Enterprise 2018 2THE UX INSIGHTS COMPANY

INTRODUCTION


Kuldeep Kelkar SVP, Global UX Research Services, UserZoom

John Romadka Senior Manager UX Research, UserZoom

Cody Rosasco PhD: UX Researcher, UserZoom

While there have been surveys over the past few years that have looked at the state of UX as a whole, and at UX design in particular, we here at UserZoom have noticed that the state of UX in the Enterprise hasn’t been analyzed in-depth. Particularly when it comes to understanding how enterprise companies are conducting UX research. We want to change that.

That’s why we conducted a survey with hundreds of experience professionals at some of the largest organizations on the planet to better understand the culture of research and state of UX in the Enterprise.

In this report we will share the results of our survey as well as offer a synopsis on the overall state of UX research in the Enterprise in 2018.


EXECUTIVESUMMARY

The state of Enterprise UX is strong, but still faces common challenges and lots of growth opportunities!

Top 4 challenges UX teams are facing

The C-SuiteA little over half (52%) of the respondents in our survey said that their CEO mentions User Experience as a key differentiator during analyst calls, company all hands and other forums. This really isn’t all that surprising, thanks to articles like The Bottom Line: Why Good UX Design Means Better Business on Forbes. Knowing about the benefits that investing in UX and user research brings to an organization is certainly having an impact on the C-Suite, and when more enterprises hire more UX leaders, stakes are going to be even higher.

Which brings us to a turning point in how enterprise organizations are going to be organized. Currently, only 22% of the companies we polled have a VP of Design or a Chief Experience Officer but a quick LinkedIn search shows 2000+ open positions for VP of Design and similar roles. It is encouraging to see that design leaders are gaining a seat at the table, but a massive opportunity exists with the 78% who do not have a VP or higher level executive who focuses exclusively on Design & UX.

60%57%

48%45%

- Securing resources or budgets

- Integrating research into design & development

- Getting executive buy-in

- Sourcing the right participants


https://www.forbes.com/consent/?toURL=https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2017/03/23/the-bottom-line-why-good-ux-design-means-better-business/#3db748452396

https://www.forbes.com/consent/?toURL=https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2017/03/23/the-bottom-line-why-good-ux-design-means-better-business/#3db748452396

How UX teams are organized45% reported being part of a central and/or shared services team that are supporting multiple product lines. Almost a quarter (26%) are part of a product line or business unit. We predict that as enterprises hire more designers and researchers, dedicated staff that is fully integrated within product lines will continue to grow instead of the shared services model.

The OpportunitiesOnly 38% reported that UX research is well integrated into their design and development life cycle. UserZoom believes that in order to demonstrate the value of UX, get executive buy-in and secure budgets and resources for the future - the first step is to show success with one product line. From there you can figure out ways to integrate research into the broader design and development lifecycle of your products.

Almost half (49%) had less than 5 researchers, while 35% had 5 to 20+ researchers. Based on historical data, this is an increase in the number of UX researchers within organizations. We predict that this will continue to grow in coming years.

Speaking of continued growth – 75% reported an increase in demand for UX Research, but only 33% reported an increase in Research budget. Clearly efficiency is top of mind. That means that rapid, iterative, agile research efforts have to be the norm rather than the exception.

Check out our Agile eBook and learn more about running research in agile sprints

Thank you for your interest in this report. What follows is the survey results in their entirety.


http://info.userzoom.com/how-to-run-research-in-agile-sprints.html

http://info.userzoom.com/how-to-run-research-in-agile-sprints.html


SURVEY

Sample SizeIn mid-2018 we reached out to experience professionals at organizations with more than one thousand employees to participate in this survey. Our final sample size for this report is 204 participants from global, Enterprise-level companies representing a range of major industries.

Country

United States: 40%

United Kingdom: 39%

Canada: 3%

France: 2%

India: 1%

New Zealand: 1%

Portugal: 1%

Singapore: 5%

Spain: 4%


Industry

We had responses from a wide array of industries. When we looked at the “Other” replies, they were mostly from government, general UX, ecommerce, and agency.

14%

13%

12%

9%

8%

7%

7%

6%

5%

4%

3%

3%

2%

2%

1%

0%

0%

0%

0%

0%

Computer Software

Other (please specify)

Education

Retail

Telecommunications

Financial Services

Insurance

Hospitals & Healthcare

Transportation / Automotive

Media

Consumer Services

Leisure, Sports, and Recreation

Banking

Non-Profit

Corporate Service

Computer Hardware

Consumer Product Manufacturing

Food and Beverage

Pharmaceuticals and Biotech

Utilities

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%


Role

We reached out to experience professionals at large, with a majority of our responses coming from UX researchers and designers. The most common roles we saw in “Other” related to customer experience.

Level

38%

36%

11%

10%

2%

1%

0%

0%

0%

Design/UX

UX Research


Product Management

Marketing

Sales

Account Management

Engineering

Support

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

60%

27%

5%

4%

1%

1%

0%

Individual Contributor

Manager

Director


C-Level

Sr. Vice President

Vice President

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%


What sources do you use to improve your UX knowledge?

We noticed a trend of self-educating. The good news is that there are various ways to self-improve and practitioners are actively seeking them out.

72%

70%

69%

66%

58%

58%

55%

54%

49%

34%

29%

29%

6%

Books

Conferences

Blogs

Webinars

Online Courses

Videos

Online Guides

Social Media

Networking Events

In-Person Classes

Certification Programs

In-House Training


0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%


How many UX designers are at your company?

Even amongst large companies there is quite the discrepancy in how many UX designers are at each company.

When we filtered to see which sized companies employ 20 or more designers we see a trend in the largest of companies having the most designers. We also filtered by industry and found that, in general, computer software companies tend to employ more designers than the rest.

4%

26%

20%

16%

34%

None

1-4

5-10

11-20

20+

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50% 55% 60% 65% 70% 75% 80% 85% 90% 95%100%


How many UX researchers are at your company?

The same holds true as the previous question. The smaller the company size the fewer researchers and vice versa.

16%

49%

14%

8%

13%

None

1-4

5-10

11-20

20+

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50% 55% 60% 65% 70% 75% 80% 85% 90% 95%100%


How are UX teams aligned at your organization?

The bulk of the UX teams are centralized, while the next largest chunk support several products or units.

45%

26%

19%

10%

A central team that supports multiple Productsor Business Units

Part of one (or several) product lines orbusiness units

Hybrid

Unsure

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%


How many product lines does your UX team support?

The bulk of the UX teams are centralized, while the next largest chunk support several products or units.

6%

35%

22%

14%

23%

None

1-5

6-10

11-20

20+

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50% 55% 60% 65% 70% 75% 80% 85% 90% 95%100%


How many teams/groups would you estimate include UX practitioners at your company?

Would appear that for a majority of the people polled UX is still a rather siloed group. In the very large enterprises UX is spread across many different teams.

There are still some companies where UX isn’t on the table for any teams. What we don’t know is whether or not this work is being outsourced to an agency, but we can safely say this number is going down every year and is much lower than it was a decade ago or even five years ago.

4%

56%

17%

8%

15%

None

1-5

6-10

11-20

20+

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50% 55% 60% 65% 70% 75% 80% 85% 90% 95%100%


What level of management does your most senior UX or Design leader report into at your company?

A majority of UX practitioners are reporting to mid, to upper-middle management. The good news is that a few C-level executives are actually directly involving themselves with UX. This number is higher now than it was a few short years ago, and we predict it will continue to grow.

26%

32%

13%

7%

11%

11%

Manager

Director

Vice President

Sr. Vice President

C-Level

Unsure

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%


Do you have a VP of Design or a Chief Experience Officer?

Even amongst the large enterprises there still aren’t very many high level design officers of experience officers. We see this as a huge opportunity for the enterprise.

67%

21%

11%

No

Yes

Unsure

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%


Are your company’s products known for design excellence or product awards?

Of those who said yes, the company sizes are spread fairly evenly but lean towards the larger companies.

53%

27%

20%

No

Yes

Unsure

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%


Has your CEO mentioned user or customer experience as a competitive differentiator in the last 12 months?

Not surprising given that the knowledge is spreading that design and customer led companies are being more successful than the laggards. We expect to see the “Yes” column going up and “No/Unsure” going down.

52%

26%

22%

Yes

No

Unsure

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%


Based on your executive team’s actions in the last 12 months, what do you feel is the perceived value of UX within your company?

We feel that this is swinging in the right direction. It’s still a matter of educating the overall market, as well as each individual industry, about the value and benefits UX brings to them.

23%

60%

14%

3%

High Value

Moderate Value

Low Value

No Value

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%


Rate your level of agreement with the following statements about UX within your company

For the rating scale 1 = Strongly Disagree, 4 = Neutral, 7 = Strongly Agree

Overall the numbers here are very high. Good news for UX practitioners as well as the other departments that deal in the experience of their customers.

5.6

5.6

5.2

UX has a direct impact on our brand

UX has a direct impact on our products value

UX has a direct impact on our bottom-line

1 2 3 4 5 6 7


Which of the following would best describe your organizations’ level of UX maturity?

The median being a stage 5 out of 8 is a healthy sign, but the fact that almost one quarter of companies polled are still beneath the dedicated budget phase is worrisome. The good news is that there are a few shining examples down at the end of stage 7 and 8 of UX being integrated, but at 12% there is room for growth even amongst the large enterprise organizations.

Stage 1 Hostile Towards Usability – Developers simply don’t want to hear about users or their needs

Stage 2 Developer-Centered User Experience – Design teams rely on their own intuition on what will be best for users

Stage 3 Skunkworks User Experience – Small UX efforts to recruit a hand full of users for simple tests

Stage 4 Dedicated UX Budget – UX is thought of as something that spruces up a user interface

Stage 5 Managed Usability – There’s an official UX group being led by a UX manager who “owns” UX

Stage 6 Systematic User-Centered-Design (UCD) Process – Company recognizes the need for a UCD process with multiple activities and milestones

Stage 7 Integrated UCD - Every development lifecycle step is infused with user data

Stage 8 User-Driven Corporation – User needs determines what types of projects the company runs


What teams at your company get the most value from UX research?

74%

71%

51%

42%

36%

35%

25%

Design

User Experience

Product Management

Customer Experience

Marketing

Research

Engineering

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%


What organizations/functions at your company conduct some form of UX research today?

We imagine we’ll see a continued uptick in the Design column as well as the PM, MR, and CX columns in the future.

73%

54%

42%

41%

39%

37%

14%

4%

User Experience

Design

Customer Experience

Research

Product Management

Marketing

Engineering


0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%


What key challenges does UX research face at your company?

The top three challenges enterprises are facing when it comes to conducting UX research are securing budgets and resources, baking research into design and development, and getting executive buy-in.

Just behind executive buy-in is participant sourcing. The good news is that getting access to the right tools isn’t that large of a problem, it just shows there is still a need to educate stakeholders and the C-suite on the importance and ROI of UX and user research.

60%

57%

48%

45%

34%

23%

22%

Securing resources or budget

Inclusion within the product development process

Executive buy-in about UX research

Sourcing the right participants

Collaborating with developers

Lack of functionality with existing tools

Access to tools

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%


How frequently did your organization conduct UX research in the last 12 months?

Overall, the state of enterprise UX research is fairly regular – which is good! Only a very small percentage selected annually or semi-annually.

There is some vagueness as to how often “as-needed” is, though. This might be once or twice a week, once a month, twice a quarter, or on a blue moon every 5 years.

Regardless, the fact that almost one third of enterprises polled are conducting research either weekly or bi-weekly, and that 67% are conducting research every month, is great news about the state of UX in the Enterprise.

23%

23%

18%

12%

11%

10%

3%

1%

Monthly

Weekly

As needed

Quarterly

Daily

Bi-weekly

Semi-Annually

Annually

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%


How has the demand for UX research changed in the last 12 months?

This is a very optimistic image! There is a very obvious trend here on increased demand, or at the very least, an ongoing demand for it.

30%

35%

20%

1%

3%

10%

Significant increase

Slight increased

About the same

Significant decrease

Slight decreased

Not sure

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%


How has your UX research budget changed in the last 12 months?

Similar to above, there is a trend of mostly staying the same or slightly increasing. Significant increase in budget isn’t lining up with the significant increase in demand, however. We at UserZoom have noticed a trend in research teams needing to scale their research without breaking the bank.

10%

23%

32%

2%

4%

29%

Increased significantly

Increased slightly

About the same

Decreased slightly

Decreased significantly

Not sure

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%


You said your UX Research budget changed. By how much?If participants in the previous question answered that their budgets had changed, either higher or lower, they were asked this follow up question.

Decreased Budget

The good news here is that of the 204 respondents only 12 said that their UX research budget actually decreased. Unfortunately six of those said that their budget had decreased by as much as 51-75%.

Increased Budget

Fortunately, 68 respondents from the Enterprise said that their UX research budget had actually increased. A majority of these people (51%) saw an increase in budget up to 25% more.


In which of the following channels did your company perform UX research in the last 12 months?

74%

55%

47%

34%

28%

24%

21%

20%

20%

19%

12%

7%

4%

4%

Websites

Mobile Websites

Mobile Apps

Software/Desktop Apps

Tablet Websites

Marketing Campaigns

Emails

Omnichannel

Tablet Apps

Physical Experiences (In-Store, etc)

Social Media

Unsure

Games


0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%


For what device(s) does your company develop the majority of their products?

92%

76%

50%

6%

4%

Desktop

Mobile/Phone

Tablet

Wearables


0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%


Is UX research infused into your company’s development process?

47%

38%

16%

No

Yes

Unsure

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%


What design tools does your UX team primarily use for creating User Interfaces?

The most repeated answers in the “Other” category were Axure, InVision and iRise.

67%

51%

20%

4%

1%

1%

Sketch

Adobe Creative Cloud


Gimp

Acorn

Pixelmator

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%


What prototyping tools does your UX team use?

The most repeated answers in the “Other” category were Proto.io and “I don’t know.”

61%

57%

48%

24%

19%

17%

1%

1%

Invision

Sketch

Axure

Adobe XD


Balsamiq

JustInMind

Mockplus

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%


What collaboration tools does your team use?

The most repeated answers in the “Other” category were Skype, Jabber, Sharepoint, and Confluence.

62%

61%

28%

17%

8%

7%

2%

Jira

Slack


Yammer

Basecamp

None

Jive

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%


What platforms (if any) does your organization use to report on business KPIs/metrics?

The most repeated answers in the “Other” category were Google Analytics, Omniture, Quantum Metrics, and “I don’t know.”

29%

28%

21%

15%

13%

7%

7%

3%

1%

None

Tableau


Power BI

SAP business objects

Oracle BI

Splunk

Domo

Pentaho

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%


What do you think are the most important trends affecting user experience in the next 5 years?

Practically tied at the top of the list are Voice Interfaces followed by Artificial Intelligence. This pack is followed by another close grouping of Internet of Things, Omnichannel Experiences and Multi-Device Interaction.

In the “Other” category it was a landslide choice of Augmented Reality.

67%

66%

48%

44%

42%

36%

32%

25%

23%

20%

15%

14%

5%

Voice Interfaces

Artificial Intelligence

Internet of Things

Omnichannel Experiences

Multi-Device Interaction

Automation

Virtual Reality

Touch Interfaces

Wearable Tech

Gesture-Based Interfaces

Robotics

Globalization


0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%


In the last 12 months, which of the following UX research methods did your company perform most?

In-lab moderated sessions are still at the top of the list, but remote methodologies are right behind. Remote moderated and remote unmoderated are tied in overall usage.

54%

49%

49%

In-Lab, Moderated

Remote, Moderated

Remote, Unmoderated

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%


In the last 12 months, how frequently was your Executive Team updated with insights from your UX research?

Over half of the enterprises polled in this survey are at least updating their executive team on a regularly scheduled basis, with a quarter doing so on a monthly basis. Quarterly and weekly are almost tied, while daily only makes a very small fraction.

Unfortunately there is still a small percentage of executive teams that never get any updates with UX insights.

2%

12%

25%

15%

7%

1%

29%

9%

Daily

Weekly

Monthly

Quarterly

Semi-Annually

Annually

As needed

Never

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%


Which of the following UX research methods did you use the most frequently in the last 12 months?

Not surprisingly, in-person interviews and moderated sessions are still at the top of the list followed closely by surveys. We don’t expect to see this change too much in the short or long term, but we do expect to see the online usability testing column rise exponentially.

68%

62%

54%

42%

37%

27%

24%

23%

21%

21%

15%

13%

7%

5%

4%

In-Person Interviews / Moderated

Surveys

Online Usability Testing

A/B Testing

Card Sorting

Remote Moderated

Focus Groups

Click Testing

Field Studies

UX Benchmarking

Tree Testing

Multi-Method

Diary Studies


Longitudinal Studies

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%


Which of the following UX research methods would you like to use more in the next 12 months?

A/B testing tops out the list, beating out both in-person interviews/moderated sessions and online usability testing. The biggest increases are in UX benchmarking, which makes a 19% jump, while Longitudinal testing gets an 18% jump.

54%

49%

44%

41%

40%

39%

35%

33%

32%

31%

27%

24%

24%

22%

4%

A/B Testing

In-Person Interviews / Moderated

Online Usability Testing

UX Benchmarking

Field Studies

Remote Moderated

Card Sorting

Click Testing

Diary Studies

Surveys

Focus Groups

Multi-Method

Tree Testing

Longitudinal Studies


0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%


Does your team’s UX research include your competitors experiences?

A majority of enterprise organizations are conducting competitive benchmarking, which is good because design decisions are not being made in a vacuum.

53%

31%

16%

Yes

No

Unsure

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%


Where does your UX team find participants for research?

Many enterprises are handling the challenges of recruiting participants in-house, while 44% said they are using outside recruiting agencies. A little over a third of the enterprises we surveyed are relying on internal SME’s for their insights.

58%

44%

36%

15%

12%

11%

9%

We do our own recruiting

Outside recruiting agency

Internal subject matter experts

UserZoom’s IntelliZoom Participant RecruitingService

Social media

Unsure


0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%


What phase is the most challenging part of your UX team’s research process?

First and foremost, recruiting participants is a challenge for a good chunk of the enterprises we polled. This is not surprising - recruiting participants is a challenging endeavor because it is either very time consuming when done in-house, costly when done through an agency, or both.

Right behind recruiting is getting executive support and involvement. This is not surprising to us given that many executives still need to be educated on the importance of conducting UX research.

We recommend learning about their business goals and incorporating that into the research by showing how investing in UX can help them meet their KPIs.

47%

41%

27%

22%

22%

19%

14%

7%

Participant recruiting

Executive support/involvement

Identifying actionable insights

Data analysis/coding

Identifying study goals

Study design

Creating the report


0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%



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Documents

INTRODUCTION - UserZoom's UX Resource Centerinfo.userzoom.com/.../enterpise-ux-survey-2018.pdf · organizations. We predict that this will continue to grow in coming years. Speaking