5 reasons hiring UX hasn’t worked for you in the past - and how we can help!
Welcome to the latest edition of UX Unlocked! In this issue, we’re addressing a common challenge among businesses: why hiring UX consultants or freelancers sometimes doesn’t deliver the expected results. Perhaps you’ve experienced this with other providers, where mismatched goals, limited access to user insights, or poor integration with your team left you with a design that didn’t quite fit.
At UX Connections, we take a proactive approach to avoid these pitfalls and deliver on your unique needs. Let’s explore five key challenges that companies sometimes face with external UX teams - and how we tackle them head-on to drive success.
Why It’s a Problem
When expectations around project scope, goals, or timelines aren’t aligned from the start, the results can be frustrating on both sides. Some UX practitioners may not fully grasp a company’s vision or assume the company values speed over depth.
Impact on Business
This can lead to delayed timelines, inflated costs, and a final design that doesn’t meet the actual business goals, ultimately requiring more work and resources to align the UX with the company’s vision.
Our Approach
At UX Connections, we ensure expectations are fully aligned before work begins. Our process starts with an in-depth and integral discovery phase, where we take the time to understand your business inside and out. We conduct comprehensive stakeholder interviews to gather perspectives and opinions, ensuring we gain a truly deep understanding of your needs and objectives. Together, we define success for your project, setting clear, shared goals. Regular check-ins keep our teams on the same page, so we stay focused on what matters most to you.
Why It’s a Problem
User research relies on the right participants to generate valuable insights. When UX consultants test with users who aren’t representative of the target audience, the findings can be misleading. For instance, asking individuals with no experience in fintech or betting won’t provide the necessary context to understand user needs. Without a relevant user base, the research risks overlooking key pain points, leading to poor design decisions.
Impact on Business
Using non-representative participants results in insights that don’t align with real user needs. Overrelying on generic panels or platforms can lead to misaligned designs that fail to resonate with the target audience. This can waste time and resources, leading to poor user engagement, low adoption rates, and missed opportunities as the product doesn’t address the actual needs of users.
Our Approach
At UX Connections, we target participants who reflect the specific mindset and stage of your audience’s buying journey. We avoid generic panels and focus on users who closely match your customer profile. In some cases, we work with clients to source the right users, ensuring that our research provides actionable, accurate insights. This targeted approach helps us create designs that truly meet user needs and business goals.
Why It’s a Problem
If UX consultants work in isolation, it can lead to silos, creating gaps between the consultant’s work and the daily realities of your internal teams. Communication gaps with development, product, or marketing can prevent the UX strategy from being executed smoothly.
Impact on Business
This disconnect can lead to deliverables that don’t account for the technical or operational constraints of other teams, causing delays, extra work, and frustration across departments.
Our Approach
Collaboration is core to our process. We work directly with your internal teams to ensure our designs integrate seamlessly with their workflows. By participating in relevant team meetings and fostering open communication, we help prevent misalignment and promote cohesive, actionable designs. Our rapid onboarding and fast start approach means we hit the ground running, ensuring quick alignment and a smooth start to the project.
Why It’s a Problem
Some consultants may have deep UX expertise but lack an understanding of your specific industry, brand, or high-level goals. This can lead to designs that are aesthetically pleasing but out of touch with the unique business or user needs.
Impact on Business
Without a solid grasp of your brand and industry nuances, designs may feel inconsistent with your company’s identity and business objectives, resulting in a less engaging experience for users and potentially missed business opportunities.
Our Approach
We invest in understanding your business context. From your brand and industry to specific compliance standards, we tailor our UX designs to reflect your unique positioning. With our specialised expertise, we create designs that resonate with your audience and align with your business goals.
Why It’s a Problem
Relying on freelancers can create a single point of failure—if the freelancer moves on, they’re hard to replace. This lack of continuity can cause disruptions to the project, as teams may struggle to get the same level of expertise or consistency. Additionally, without a dedicated team, you risk losing momentum as project needs shift.
Impact on Business
When freelancers disappear or become unavailable, projects can come to a standstill. Without the right resources or expertise to keep things moving forward, timelines are delayed, and deliverables may be incomplete or inconsistent. This can also undermine client confidence, as they may worry about the project's stability and the reliability of the team behind it.
Our Approach
At UX Connections, we provide a scalable team that integrates seamlessly into your project from the start. We can quickly build a team of 3–5 experts to support your needs, eliminating the need to constantly find and onboard new freelancers. This approach gives clients confidence, knowing they have a stable, dedicated team committed to their project’s success, ensuring smooth and consistent progress.
If you’ve encountered any of these challenges with previous UX providers, know there’s a better way forward. At UX Connections, we’ve structured our approach to anticipate and prevent these common pitfalls, making your UX journey smooth and productive. Through clear communication, access to user insights, integration with your teams, and a deep understanding of your business, we’re here to unlock the full potential of your project.
We’re excited to help you achieve results that truly fit your business. Get in touch to see how we can help! Stay tuned for more insights and strategies in our next issue.