In the 3 years since I left UX consulting to start working on my own startups, I've watched as companies large and small evolved the way they think about the importance of the user experience. Changes in how products and services are built have brought increased demand for UX practitioners, and necessitated an unprecedented level of integration. How has the UX consulting industry changed to address these needs, and how can it remain relevant in the future?

I've noticed on almost every engagement I've been on in the last year a drive towards rapid, tangible results. In short, a lot more prototyping and visualizing, far less documentation and stratergizing. I've also seen clients ask for a lot more single person engagements ("We just need an interaction designer!"), which most agencies aren't set up for (or want to be set up for).

Your question begs two more:
Is there such a thing as a "UX client services model" (at least a typical one), and What is the way products are built today?

That said, I would argue that the "UX client services model" is broken because clients require client services firms to quote prices based on deliverables for specific statements of work, whereas the nature of most UX design is that you don't know exactly you're going to get, and it's not clear just what it will take to deliver on it.

Clients buy client services the same way they buy pencils (i.e., through procurement), but that model assumes a degree of certainty that is just impractical.

It's interesting to read Dan's comment that the drive is towards "rapid, tangible results" and combine it with Peter's view on how clients procure services - part of the problem with the model (if there is one) seems to be on the buy side. If clients are still focused on hours and deliverables (and consultants are willing to sell themselves in that way), how does that marry up with the focus on the resultant experience?

My guess is, "not well."

This is why we (when we were doing client work) operated in a way that set us up as an integral part of the client team. We never sold deliverables; we sold chunks of time with an end goal of creating a product. Everything that happened in between was addressed like any product team deals with things: on the fly. The product = the deliverable.

It's a weird model, and takes folks with a certain mindset and comfort with uncertainty to make this work. But it works well when all parties grok it.

I'd say we haven't adapted particularly well. Then again I don't think the agency model was ever well-suited for startups or even small businesses. Larger organizations that are trying to work on crazy complicated interfaces or break out of the organizational problems that screw up so much design - I do think UX agencies have progressed with how they help in those situations. Like Dan mentioned, people are pushing for less deliverables, more building, more focus on design, etc.

In the research we've been doing on what it takes to design great experiences, we've found the organizations that use outside UX consultancies are less likely to produce great designs over the long term than those that do the work in house.

The issue is that great designs aren't a one-shot thing that you create and then move on. They need constant attention, adjustment, and even rethinking on a regular basis.

The teams that get the best results by hiring UX consultancies use them to ramp up their own internal skills, working alongside them for the project's duration. However, they don't keep them around long term, which is doesn't help the consultancy's goal of repeat business.

UX services have become more diversified and sophisticate. Some UX firms have become more focused and turn-key, some integrate with other services, and some have invested in the 'consulting' part of UX consulting.

The most like-able trend i see is a movement towards multi-project relationships that don't follow a typical agency retainer model, but instead help orgs thru a series of releases helping everyone see the forest they're building from trees.

The success or failure of working with external UX teams seems to depend a lot on when in the process the relationship between client and consultant begins, and how long that relationship lasts. Brandon, what kind of changes (in team structure, skill set, management, etc) have been necessary to facilitate multi-project relationships? Jared, have you gotten a chance to research teams that have engaged in these kinds of engagements?

Ryan, i think it changes team responsibilities and tools. Our Program Managers — note, not 'Project Managers' anymore — are responsible across projects/releases with a client.

We need better tools & constructs for scope management, roadmapping, and staying in touch with the big picture of the cross-channel experience (adaptivepath.com) to help clients continue to make smart UX and business decisions.

And as Jared suggests, we need to teach these approaches to clients as we work.

Across all our engagements we must find hard problems to solve, build new approaches to tackle them, teach them to clients & the world, and then pick up camp and move on to the next set of challenging UX problems.

The real issue is how much the client learns about the design space themselves. If they come into the engagement thinking they are outsourcing the critical thinking to "the talent", then they'll likely fail.

Even if they approach the consultancy as a partner, the odds aren't good, because what happens when that partner is no longer there. The best solution is to grow all the knowledge inside the client team, so nothing walks out the door.

I find myself agreeing with Jared that organic growth of internal UX teams (and their knowledge base) is the best possible outcome, but I'm very much aware how hard it is to hire one UX professional right now, much less a seasoned team. The resource constraint isn't going away, which means consultants reign.

Peter, Nate, Gino: what do you think of the kinds of adjustments that Brandon has pointed to - do they address what might be missing from the older dynamic of how the work gets done?

Ryan/Brandon I don't understand the difference between a project manager and a program manager in real terms, or how that difference affects client relationships or product development. I certainly don't think Program Managers are the difference in how products get built.

To Jared's point, we'd start every new product with clients by making everyone think and act as a UXer. Best cases were that 1-2 people stayed on the path. But as hard as we tried, the odds weren't that great.

This all has me thinking. Can anyone here name examples of runaway product successes that were designed by a contracted firm and built by the company itself?

I think it's only a matter of time (if it hasn't happened already) before the UX consultants are as hard to get time from as hiring a seasoned team. They are constrained by the same talent pool as everyone else.

Gino I'd love to say examples of agency-led interaction design that's a big hit. I mean Ideo comes to mind on physical products, but maybe web-based and more recently? I can't think of any.

Ryan, Brandon - would be cool to have an @ autocomplete in here but I DIGRESS. I really do believe that the differential is size of organization. For giant organizations, these changes have absolutely helped make their interfaces much less shitty. For small organizations and startups, I'm not so sure.

I like that: "You can be much less shitty! Hire us!"

I agree with a pattern that Jared and Brandon pointed to (and that Ryan asked after): one of the more successful models I've enjoyed watching evolve is along this spectrum. Consultant-as-teacher over consecutive projects where the understanding is that the UX/IxD consultant's role is to *teach* the client a particular aspect of the product or service process. Of course, this can only be as strong as the understanding between partners at the outset, but can be quite effective.

To Gino's question re examples of runaway successes, take a look at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. MSK contracted IDEO to help make their chemotherapy process easier. But through the engagement IDEO revealed more. They looked at the center's interior design; at efficiency in wait times; at the entire experience design. Today, design is done by MSK in-house designers. To boot, they hire interns from design schools and teach them the process. It's as successful a model as I've seen.

That is a good example. Another was Beats by Dr. Dre, done by Ammunition. Can anyone think of a purely web/mobile product? I'm unaware of one.

Jared, I bet there's a market for companies that would by a services from a firm literally touting, "We'll make your products far less shitty." We all say it in so many words.

Smart Design's work with Flip is another product design example. But my experience with consulting on web products is that it's seldom the entire product: more often it's a troubling piece. The Ning Customizer that Ryan and I worked on while at Adaptive Path is a good example. They couldn't get the design where they wanted internally, so they brought in help. And it did well and was used by millions (to this day, I think).

Gino, absolutely there is a market. Think of it as a zero to five scale. It's easy to get help to get from zero to one. Or from two to three. But to get to a four or a five, well, that's really hard.

Move from zero to two: That's "make less shitty"
Move from anything to five: That's "create awesomeness"

Design for digital is more than 30 years old. For web, it's almost 20. You'd think we'd know how by now.

I feel like we've gotten some good inputs from the group - from those who've moved out of consulting to working directly with product teams, from those who have worked to evolve how the UX client services model works, and even from those who've carefully studied the impact outside teams can have.

I don't know that there's a definitive answer to the question that I posed to kick off the conversation (or even to the questions Peter suggested). What we do know is that the practice is changing.

With those changes will come more (and different) kinds of challenges, and probably some good case studies. I believe that the continuum of effort/effect Jared described in his last post will play a large part in determining how product teams of the future approach UX problems. Teams facing "make less shitty" challenges might feel more comfortable with seeking outside assistance. For the more adventurous, in search of true excellence in experience, the best solution may be to do it themselves.

With the caveat that sometimes that last push to "create awesomeness" (i.e. go from 3 to 4 or go from 4 to 5) can be really hard for internal teams, who sometimes can't see the forest for the trees or simply don't have the internal resources (or level of expertise) to do that, although they know it's possible. This is where design consultancies, who (if they are any good) have high levels of expertise, can be of value.

In fact, now that I think about it, consultancies probably do their best work in the 0-2 range (get something launched) or the 4-5 (get something polished) range. The mid-range, 2-4 (incremental improvements) might be best handled by in-house. But just a hypothesis.

Dan, our definitions of a 4 or 5 might be different, which is why I'm seeing a disconnect. I think polishing is something a consultancy can do, but getting from a 4 to 5 is not polish. It's an exponential jump in the overall experience.

Think Virgin America over United Airlines. There's no consultancy in the world that can turn the flying turd of UA into VA. (And VA is probably only a 4 — it certainly has its share of flaws.) This is not a game of polish. It's changing the rules.

Look at Nokia vs. Apple. Nokia has probably spent tens of millions of dollars on design consultancies (including Adaptive Path, Fjord, IDEO) and have pretty much nothing to show for it. In the last 10 years, Apple has spent nothing (at least for product). In order to get from (anywhere) to 5, UX needs to be an internal competency, with all the organizational challenges that suggests. Consultancies simply cannot make that happen.

Nokia has nothing/very little to show from its internal design teams either. (As is the case with many other organizations as well.)

UX is not immune to Sturgeon's Law. 90% of everything done is still crap.

What's interesting to me is where that 10% will emerge from and how it will come about.

thesfegotist.com

An interesting (and fairly brutal) perspective on creative work, the industry, and where it might have all gone horribly wrong.