As with Agile, UX has suffered fools having a go and failing.

Focusing on titles, roles, activities or outputs misses the essential process that has not been applied by qualified, able and intelligent people who are able to deliver. No amount of talking about wireframes without understanding that anyone can produce a wireframe, just like anyone can produce a presentation can reduce the risk of confusing a delivery mechanism with the deliverable itself.

“Wireframes are not the deliverable in UX”

The deliverables of UX are the user research, business research, domain research, usability, accessibility, site architecture, enterprise architecture, data architecture, control language, logic model, engagement model, commerce model  that are communicated in wireframes and functional specifications. This is the story of industrialisation vs. quality. The battle is as old as time big companies want to commoditise services, but some services just don’t fit that model.

“UX is client (audience) specific not consultancy specific so cannot be industrialised”

So while client companies appear similar they are not and their UX cannot be packaged and mass re-sold to other companies. If the ethos of the big consultancies cannot work with UX, what can?

The only thing that can make UX work at enterprise level is a change of ethos driven by “clients not willing to accept the same results” as before.

“As with all business real UX demand will create real UX supply.

The recent changes in the service market where small agencies work on huge corporate accounts, is a clear indication that clients want customer/user experience strategy, customer/user focused projects and high quality visual design as part of all their projects. Companies are committing to engaging, usable and effectual experiences for their staff, partners and customers. And global consultancies are on catch up.

The key thing must be can global consultancies deliver actual UX?

More and more are being found out for pushing graphic designers on to client’s as UX people but they just can’t deliver the ROI required.

More importantly than the deliverables what will the global UX leadership be?

Leadership in UX is critical as it sets the agenda for service offerings, promotion and recruitment. And because there are so many people taking UX who clearly don’t have a clue, what happens if one of these people gains control of UX in an enterprise? My experience of fixing companies after such things is every talented person leaves, just like they do in a buy out. The only recovery point is to get rid of “the director” and start again.

The question to all global consultancies must be,

“how many times can you start your UX offering again, before you lose the confidence of clients”

very few I suspect.