BES Playbook

1.4 Levels of Design Maturity

Integration of user experience as a core strategic pillar within your organization is not a binary proposition. Every organization will have differences in the extent to which they have adopted design into their business process. For this reason, InVision defined a maturity model for experience design adoption. In this model, organizations are rated at one of five levels.

1.4.1

1.4.2

It’s important to be cognizant of your current maturity level within this model, and to appreciate that moving up this model only increases the overall return on investment to your mission, your stakeholders, and your end users.

For example, per InVision’s research, organizations are five times more likely to report having an impact on cost savings, when functioning at a Level 5 versus a Level 1. This number only increases when examining time to release.

1.4.3

1.4.1 Leveling Up

Increasing your organization’s strategic alignment around design and adoption of design practices can be done by adhering to a few guiding principles.

Within each principle below are statements that, per InVision’s findings, hold true at least twice as often in Level 5 organizations as in Level 1.

Top-down belief in the value of design

  • Executives talk about the value of design internally.
  • Design shares priorities and goals with key partners.
  • Executives prioritize decisions that lead to the best design/customer experience.

Involve design throughout the software development process

  • Design is well-integrated in the product development process.
  • Design leaders are peers with product management and engineering leaders.

Value user research

  • Employees participate in user/customer research.
  • Employees understand why human-centered design is valuable.

Share design research and decision-making across disciplines

  • Design work is shared in all hands meetings, important executive meetings, and other influential gatherings.
  • Design has joint working sessions with key partners (e.g., workshops, stand-ups, etc.).
  • Product/feature ideas are jointly developed and owned between design and key partners.

Reference

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