First A Glance Back
The importance of user experience to an organization’s products grows each year. User experience first emerged as a statistically significant factor in our 2014 study when we discovered that strong product teams had a user experience professional embedded. So it does not come as a surprise that user experience has shown up in our regression analysis again this year. Our 2015 data reveals that when user experience professionals are actively involved in the product development process and working closely with the product team, superior results follow.
Where Does User Experience Report To Today?
According to our survey, user experience reports to Engineering, Development, Technology or a similar department in nearly a third (29.8%) of companies surveyed.
User experience is perceived as becoming increasingly important to the design and development of successful products. Where does user experience report in your organization?
In slightly more than one-fourth (26.4%) of organizations user experience reports into Product Management, with another 8% reporting directly to the Chief Product Officer. The remaining responses are split fairly evenly between reports going to Technology Architecture, Product Architecture or a similar department (11.4%); Marketing (12.2%); or “Other” (12.2%). Included among the “Other” responses are a wide variety of departments and titles including CEO, Chief Content Officer, COO, Consumer and Public Affairs Unit, Client Services and many more.
Product team members also provided insight into challenges organizations have integrating UX into their hierarchies. 30% of respondents indicate that user experience currently reports to the Engineering or Development function. But when asked where UX should report to be most effective, survey respondents by a wide margin pointed to product management or the Chief Product Officer. (More on this in an upcoming post!)
The Bottom Line
Product teams that successfully integrate user experience professionals into the product development process are more likely to perform at a high level.
Advancing the Profession of Product Management™
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