The belief that UX design skills and business do not go together is unfounded. Some may argue that a great UX designer need not be a key business decision-maker. But key business skills at the disposal of a UX designer will enhance his career and craft. Business acumen lends useful support to creative professionals, specifically UX designers to be successful. They understand the value their hard work adds to the business.

According to UX design statistics, only 5% of the features are used over 95% of the time. This 5% must be the core solution in tandem with the business goals. To achieve this, the design team engagement right from business requirements specification is essential.

In most cases UX designers’ role is assumed to be restricted to only:

• Deciding the number of clicks
• Make navigation straightforward
• Appealing visual design

But the most important feature to make the above functionality come alive is enriching the overall user experience. This is possible only if UX designers are involved in the entire process of business decisions right from the word go.

They must participate in brainstorming solutions until taking them to the end-user. The creative capabilities of the design team can be leveraged to visualize possibilities regular that traditional associates would have missed.

Design team inputs in testing and prototyping will make these processes significantly more effective.  These are the benefits of UX designers start to speak the business language:

Understanding the business objectives is the steppingstone to designing the right solution. The UX designer can ensure that user needs are aligned with the business needs.

Through the design team’s meaningful collaboration with project managers, analysts, and clients, the solutions can be steered to be more user-centric. The complete dynamics of the project are altered with users being the focal point.

In many cases, it is difficult to strike a balance of the ideas of the design team with the available technology and budget. Once the UX design team prioritizes the design features from the business point of view, it is easy to get the technical and finances team on the same page.

Only if the business objectives are understood by the UX designers, can they create rich and engaging user experiences as opposed to just good designs.

UX designers must not focus only on making the solution “desirable”. They must consider its viability, feasibility, and sustainability to the business. UX designers must be a part of:

• Meetings between business stakeholders to define business requirements
• UX design team must be given sufficient time and budget to perform detailed user research and design solutions that will work for them.
• The design team must be given regular updates on the technical feasibility of their solutions.
• These designs must be sent to approval by business decision-makers before sending them for user testing
• After approval and testing, these solutions go live

UX designers who develop business acumen along with the following skills see more success in their creations:

• Converse with business stakeholders in the language they understand. The UX design team must take out time in grasping the business strategies and long term plans. To interact with and influence the business team, designers must communicate in the business language. The organization must have a single universal language and one process towards one goal. UX design must be a part of this process.
• One of the vital skills a UX designer must possess is sales knowledge. He must understand what ROI is the design providing? What value addition is the design offering?
• UX designers must have the inherent ability to sell, understand decision making, and ask questions. With this, the client’s expectation will align with the designer’s vision.
• Lastly, a UX designer must have the ability to listen, understand the thinking process of the business stakeholders, empathize, and have good cognition of the discussions held in the meeting room.

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