UX Strategy

Product Strategy Techniques for Devising Innovative Digital Solutions

By: Jaime Levy

Narrated by: Jaime Levy

Length: 8 hrs and 1 min

Publisher's Summary

User experience (UX) strategy lies at the intersection of UX design and business strategy, but until now, there hasn't been an easy-to-apply framework for executing it. This hands-on guide introduces lightweight product strategy tools and techniques to help you and your team devise innovative digital solutions that people want.

Author Jaime Levy shows UX/UI designers, product managers, entrepreneurs, and aspiring strategists simple to advanced methods that can be applied right away. You'll gain valuable perspective through business cases and historical context. This second edition includes new real-world examples, updated techniques, and a chapter on conducting qualitative online user research.

• Define value propositions and validate target users through provisional personas and customer discovery techniques
• Explore marketplace opportunities by conducting competitive research and analysis
• Design experiments using rapid prototypes that are focused on the business model
• Conduct online user research to gain valuable insights quickly on any budget
• Test business ideas and validate marketing channels by running online advertising and landing page campaigns

©2021 Jaime Levy (P)2021 Jaime Levy

Handbook for beginners, not suited for audio

It was worth trying to make this topic as an audiobook, but it just doesn't work. It's very a very visual subject. The book goes heavily into detail in very basic stuff. Reading is extremely slow, but that doesn't help to make it easier to follow.

A Must Read for Product Teams

This is a great resource - should be required reading - for product teams wanting to deliver innovative products at speed. This book breaks down the critical steps for success and provides clear examples of the risks and rewards of following or ignoring due diligence and proper processes. ie: understand how your business strategy is being/should be consumed by the people you want to reach to avoid wasting time, effort, and money AND asking/answering the difficult question up front "Is this the right thing to do?" This book covers the 4 tenants of UX strategy that are critical keys to success.

This second edition is a great example of how the industry continues to evolve by referencing the impact the pandemic has had on user research and collaboration. Jaime does a fantastic job of narrating how teams can pivot to get the job done remotely without compromising standards or skipping a beat.

Successful product teams understand the value of UX strategy and how it supports business strategy. If you're new to the world of UX or an oldtimer, this book is a great read/listen to get your approach on the right track.

Knowledgeable

I liked the in detail discussion on testing in this book. The information was a piece that I needed and did not know prior. So thank you.

Awesome book!

Listening to this book was great. Voice was soothing and had a great pace. Always been a big fan of Jamie Levy and her ways of design thinking. Thank you, Jamie!

Excellent book for all levels

Jaime Levy’s UX strategy is a wonderful book for any one in the field of product design. She interweaves her personal experiences which helps us understand what UX strategy really is. The narration is good, but would have liked more voice modulation.

Worth the listen!

As a new UX’er, I feel like this book helped me gain additional insight into the necessary work. I feel like this book validates what I’ve learned, and then some. I love the emphasis on the importance of research and validating your users to help guide the product as to not waste time.

Jaime does a great job using real world, authentic examples throughout the text. I feel like it’s a bit of her life story as well as she was surrounded by design practices through her parent’s entrepreneurial endeavors as a child.

I really wasn’t expecting a guide to go accompany the book, but I’m glad it did. The guide will be used when I obtain a UX role and it’s way more comprehensive that the templates I was provided in my certification program.

The only thing that I may change is when the visual diagrams were introduced, Ch. 7. (maybe I missed it earlier ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ , to err is human). I was able to tell when she was referring to a visual and wished I could see it. After gaining access to it and then going through the previous ones, it all came together.

I’m glad I had access to the 2nd edition as well, as the information was timely and appropriate to the changes in society associated with COVID.

To anyone new to UX or anyone who’s been stuck in a not ideal UX environment, I highly recommend giving this a listen.

A must listen for every entrepreneur and

Although you might think you know all about an testing, user testing, analytics etc, this book brings all the the ways to make a product succeed in the marketplace under one roof. Applying these strategies to a new product will give it a 2 to 3x better odds to succeed. Thanks for a great work.

Essential reading for any UX professional

Jaime is an expert in the field. Here UX strategy insights will empower a UX designer to go from “building to specifications” to someone who can confidently influence an organization when it decides what products / services / features should be built.

I wish I could go back in time ten years and hand myself a copy!

Portable lessons for any UX role

I already enjoyed the first edition of Jamie’s work, and was excited to hear the second edition! Well
paced with new lessons and data points - the audiobook for UX Strategy is packed with essentials for any UXer, and read to you by the author!

UX Course in a Book

This book was a great read. It covers a lot of the nuance in UX strategy. It was organized very like a UX course and I felt a lot like being in class as I was listening to the audiobook.

It was great listen to pass the time while I was on flights for work.

Audiobook a useful companion to the hardcopy

UX Strategy by Jamie Levy (alongside a small clutch of other O'Reilly books) is a resource I often reach for as part of my practice. This second edition is a welcome and much needed update. A lot has changed, the role of UX and the contexts it sits within have evolved. The four pillars, or tenets, remain in place by name but with a wealth of updated content and supportive insights. The content is as clear and practical as before, but informed by new perspectives.

I found the audiobook to be most useful alongside the book. It's oftentimes difficult to make the time or have the space, particularly when working from home, to engage with a text. The audiobook allows you to break free of those constraints and listen on the go, whether heading out for groceries or on a run. Without this it would have taken a considerably longer time to work through and benefit from.

The content does require you actively listen and engage, it's not like you can zone out and return with ease. Anyone new to UX will need to focus on the narration. And the book certainly has visual aids that bring unfamiliar topics to life too, not so much of an issue if you already practice UX. That said the narration is strong, Jamie brings her topic to life and is very easy to listen to.

An excellent addition to your library.

A favourite I often return to !

Jaime’s narration was excellent. She gets straight to the point and explains the concepts of UX strategy in the most simplistic way. Lots of focus on research, talking to your users, validating your ideas, and presenting them to stakeholders.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone willing to venture into UX strategy, product management and aspiring startup founders.

Integral part of the UX curriculum for all

I loved Jamie's first version of this book! Truthfully I did not imagine it could improve or enhance my knowledge of UX strategy further - to the extent I was listening to the second edition.

UX professionals hands-on frameworks for how to merge UX design, research and business strategy together to build products people need.

Jamie provides usable and real-world examples that illustrate effectively "how to win with UX strategy" within your organisation.

How to define value propositions and validate target users through provisional personas and customer discovery techniques
How to explore marketplace opportunities by conducting competitive research and analysis
How to design experiments using rapid prototypes that are focused on the business model
How to conduct online user research to gain valuable insights quickly on any budget
How to test business ideas and validate marketing channels by running online advertising and landing page campaigns

If you already have Jamie's first version of this book, you will still gain so much by extending your purchase to the audio and updated 2nd version,

After listening, I really felt this is an integral part of the UX Curriculum. One that is accessible to all levels and backgrounds.

Invaluable summary of a movement's evolution

I have been working in and around this space for 15 years and consider myself an experienced proponent. This was a shot in the arm that reinvigorates and reminds me that the logic for challenging assumptions to build a case for doing the right thing - is the right thing. Jamie's undoubted expertise, insight and lived experience saved me a significant amount of time in bringing together the argument into a satisfying and logical whole.

I find myself frequently arguing the case for this approach in conversations with the Enterprise. It's good to know this resource exists. I will revisit and pull out some of the stand out (convincing) examples as arrows in my quiver to fire over on the right occasion.

Clear, well defined process for your UX strategy

Jaime narrates and details a very thorough and specific process you can follow to identify, challenge and develop the usability and desirability of a product opportunity. She provides plenty of additional and up to date resources to use as part of your strategy work. If you're looking to create some clarity or alignment around the user experience in your organisation, this will provide a useful guide. Overall, it's a strong book and provides a great step by step guide if your idea for a product or experience, or an existing one needs some direction.

Only two downsides which knocked this down from 5-star for me. The process seems a little too rigid and comes across as absolute; alternative methods are not mentioned nor is flexibility around the order you do the work. Plus, some resources mentioned are visual so as a listener they're hard to imagine. Listeners would benefit more from having a copy of them to refer to.

A guide through plenty of methods

A really useful read in framing how lots of different methodologies can be bought together to provide a rounded strategy for your business. Especially if you are very new to the world of UX.

Great book for junior to mid UX designers

Great book that covers the basic of creating ux strategies. This is a must read for junior and mid level designers.

Essential listening for all user centred product designers

Stories intertwined with valuable practical guides on how to research, design, and launch a successful product.

Great for juniors or senior professionals alike as it succinctly pulls together the principals and processes of developing a human centred product with the hypotheses and data to prove it.

Up to date user experience research paradigms are explained for a post-covid world.

Excellent ammo if you’re fighting with opinionated stakeholders or immature design departments.

Complex yet Simple. Perfect.

Jaime has managed to take complex concepts and distill them into easy to digest and understand ideas. Even as an experienced marketing professional, Jaime highlighted a number of insightful snippets that I have already used in my day job.

Coupled with the FOC tool kit that is provided with the book, this is a must read for UX beginners and seasoned professionals alike.

We’ll done Jaime!

An essential read of anyone wishing to driving value and innovation

I highly commend Jaime on this book.
The accessible manner in which UX Strategy serves as a framework that navigates its reader through the intricate interrelationships of product, UX and business innovation. Providing real prototypes that resonate and provide a business truth.
Whilst so much has changed within the UX universe, Jaime outlines how analysis and insight can true enhance product development and success.
If you seek an understanding of how you successfully drive customer and business value through proven patterns of innovation, look no further.