Assessing UX maturity

You can’t judge your own baby

“You can’t judge your own baby,” so you will need a neutral expert to assess the UX maturity of a product team or an organization. Or, even better, two neutral experts, working independently. The UX maturity of an organization is the UX maturity of the product team with the lowest UX maturity.

A UX maturity assessment of an organization is carried out by assessing a number of recent representative development projects. The overall assessment is based on the individual assessments. The findings from the individual assessments are hidden in the final results in order to preserve the anonymity of the projects and people. Assessments are always about the practices of a company or a team, not about individuals. 

Some of my experiences regarding the assessment of UX maturity are:

  • Both the UX maturity of a product team and an organization can be assessed.
  • Some managers believe that their organization’s UX maturity is much higher than what an external expert would conclude.

A trustworthy assessment of UX maturity takes time. It’s not enough to base the assessment on, for example, ten 30-minute conversations with UX professionals and managers in the organization. A UX maturity assessment must include reviews of UX goals and strategies as well observing interviews, reviewing the subsequent summaries of the interviews, reviewing user requirements, observing usability test sessions, reviewing the corresponding usability test reports, and more. All reviews must be carried out by highly experienced UX professionals and based on carefully reviewed checklists.


Open questions

  • How do you determine if a consultant who is offering to assess the UX maturity of your organization is qualified for the job?
  • What qualifications are needed to assess an organization at the highest UX maturity level?


Acknowledgements

Timo Jokela provided helpful comments and suggestions for the content of this page.