🎯 Six Key Components of UX Strategy
For years, “UX strategy” felt like a confusing, ambiguous, and overloaded term to me. I would be asked to draft a strategic paper or report, and I never knew just what exactly it should include. To me, it was some sort of a roadmap or a “grand vision”, with a few business decisions attached to it. And looking back now, I realize that perhaps I was wrong all along.
UX Strategy isn’t a goal; it’s a journey towards a goal. A journey connecting where UX is today with a desired future state of UX. And as such, it guides our actions and decisions, things we do and don’t do. And its goal is very simple: to maximize our chances of successful outcome — while considering risks, bottlenecks and anything that might move that journey off track or undermine the initiative altogether.
Let’s explore some components of UX strategy, and how it works with product strategy and business strategy to deliver user value and meet business goals.
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Strategy vs. Goals vs. Plans
When we speak about strategy, we often speak about planning and goals — but they are actually quite different. While strategy answers “what” we’re doing and “why”, planning is about “how” and “when” we’ll get it done. And the goal is merely a desired outcome of that entire journey.
- Goals establish a desired future outcome,
- That outcome typically represents a problem to solve,
- Strategy shows a high-level solution for that problem,
- Plan is a detailed set of low-level steps for getting the solution done.
A strong strategy requires making conscious, and oftentimes tough, decisions about what we will do — and just as importantly, what we will not do, and why.
Business Strategy
UX strategy doesn’t live in isolation. It must inform and support product strategy and be aligned with business strategy. All these terms are often slightly confusing and overloaded, so let’s clear it up.
In the words of Alex M H Smith , at the highest level, business strategy is about the distinct choices executives make to set the company apart from its competitors. They shape the company’s positioning, objectives, and (most importantly!) competitive advantage. UX affects many segments of the Business Model Canvas: user segments, relationships, channels, activities, revenue streams.
Typically, this advantage is achieved in two ways: through lower prices (cost leadership) or through differentiation. The latter part isn’t about being different, but rather being perceived differently by the target audience. And that’s exactly where UX impact steps in.
In short, business strategy is:
- A top-line desired outcome, the basis for core offers,
- Shapes how we compare ourselves against competition, goals, competitive advantage,
- Must always adapt to the market to keep a competitive advantage.
Product Strategy
Product strategy is how a high-level business direction is translated into a unique placement of a product. It defines what the product is, who its users are, and how it will contribute to the business’s goals. It’s also how we bring a product to market, drive growth, and achieve product-market fit.
The Product Strategy Stack connects UX initiatives with desired business outcomes. It sits between business strategy and product delivery. UX work shapes delivery along with engineering teams, QA etc., delivering the value to the users. That value is then captured by the business. Product strategy is guided by the business strategy, and it very much needs UX strategy to inform and enable a desired successful outcome.
In short, product strategy is:
- Unique proposition and value of a product,
- How to establish and keep a product in the marketplace,
- How to keep competitive advantage of the product.
UX Strategy
UX strategy is about shaping and delivering product value through UX. Good UX strategy always stems from UX research and answers to business needs. It established what to focus on, what our high-value actions are, how we’ll measure success, and — quite importantly — what risks we need to mitigate.
Most importantly, it’s not a fixed plan or a set of deliverables; it’s a guide that informs our actions, but also must be prepared to change when things change. Sometimes designers see a high-level plan and milestones being a part of strategy, and sometimes it's mostly an intention and priorities, without a detailed plan on what will happen when.
In short, UX strategy is:
- How we shape and deliver product value through UX,
- Priorities, focus + why, actions, metrics, risks,
- Isn’t a roadmap, intention or deliverables.
Six Key Components of UX Strategy
The impact of good UX typically lives in differentiation mentioned above. Again, it’s not about how “different” our experience is, but the unique perceived value that users associate with it. And that value is a matter of a clear, frictionless, accessible, fast, and reliable experience wrapped into the product.
When I think about our long-term strategy for UX work, typically I think of 6 key components — just to make sure so we don’t end up following a wrong assumption that won’t bring any impact:
- Target goal → The desired, improved future state of UX.
- User segments → Primary users that we are considering.
- Priorities → What we will and, crucially, what we will not do, and why.
- High-value actions → How we drive value and meet user and business needs.
- Feasibility → Realistic assessment of people, processes, and resources.
- Risks → Bottlenecks, blockers, legacy constraints, big unknowns.
It’s worth noting that it’s always dangerous to be designing a product with everybody in mind. As Jaime Levy noted, by being very broad too early, we often reduce the impact of our design and messaging. It’s typically better to start with a specific, well-defined user segment and then expand, rather than the other way around.
Practical Example (by Alin Buda)
UX strategy doesn’t have to be a big 40-page long PDF report or a Keynote presentation. A while back, Alin Buda kindly left a comment on one of my LinkedIn posts, giving a great example of what a concise UX strategy could look like:
UX Strategy (for Q4)
Our UX strategy is to focus on high-friction workflows for expert users, not casual usability improvements. Why? Because retention in this space is driven by power-user efficiency, and that aligns with our growth model.
To succeed, we’ll design workflow accelerators and decision-support tools that will reduce time-on-task. As a part of it, we’ll need to redesign legacy flows in the Crux system. We won’t prioritize UI refinements or onboarding tours, because it doesn’t move the needle in this context.
What I absolutely love about Alin's example is just how concise and clear it is. Getting to this level of clarity takes quite a bit of time, but it creates a very precise overview of what we do, what we don’t do, what we focus on, and how we drive value.
Wrapping Up
The best path to make a strong case with senior leadership is to frame your UX work as a direct contributor to differentiation. This isn’t just about making things look different; it’s about enhancing the perceived value.
A good strategy ties UX improvements to measurable business outcomes. It doesn’t speak about design patterns, consistency, or neatly organized components. Instead, it speaks the language of product and business strategy: OKRs, costs, revenue, business metrics, and objectives.
And most importantly, avoid ambiguous words that are often misunderstood and misused. In the words of Alex M H Smith, say what you mean — how you are going to win (instead of "strategy"), how we compare ourselves to competition (instead of "positioning"), what are the things we want to happen (instead of "vision"), what we will be working on ("design initiatives") and how we'll be measuring success (KPIs).
Design can succeed without a strategy, but if you want to increase your chances of success, investing time and effort into strategy is always a good idea.
Useful Resources
- "Strategic Product Designer" (Notion hub), by Daniel Andor
- “UX Strategy: Definition and Components”, Sarah Gibbons, Anna Kaley
- “UX Strategy: Study Guide”, Sarah Gibbons, Anna Kaley
- What Goes Into a Proactive UX Strategy (video), Jared Spool
- “How To Develop An Effective UX Strategy”, Chloé Garnham
- The Little Book Of Strategy (free PDF), Peter Bihr
- “Enterprise UX Strategy”, Cassandra Naji
- “UX Strategy Guide” + Blueprint (Template), Alex Souza
- Product Strategy Playbooks
- UX Strategy, Jaime Levy
Great people to follow on strategy:
- Leah Tharin on product and product growth in B2B
- Ryan Rumsey on measuring impact and business
- Alex M H Smith on how to think more strategically
- Baiba Matisone on deep dives into product strategy
- Paweł Huryn on product management strategy
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Thank you so much for your support, everyone — and (as always!) happy designing! 🎉🥳
It’s very useful. Thank you
Thank you for sharing!
Awesome breakdown. Super useful visuals! Great Job!
Simple and succinct. Love it.
You’ve lumped vision, planning, and tactical execution under the word “strategy.” There is no such thing as “UX strategy” or “product strategy” in isolation — there’s just strategy. Without a concrete challenge, clear constraints, a focused method of response, and a coherent set of reinforcing actions — this isn’t strategy. It’s design planning. Goals and vision are not strategy. That’s what OKRs and roadmaps are for.