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Have you ever heard of a company whose principal values are serving users and providing them the best experience possible? Well, that is literally every company’s “mission”, as stated on their websites. In reality, most of them are far from that vision. 

As a design agency, we worship the principles of user-centered design and believe it can save the world (or at least some businesses). UX maturity is the marker of how close a company is to that ideal.

User experience maturity is a long process that can take years, and it is important to know the milestones on this long road. Do you know what level of UX maturity are you at? How can you grow? Let’s start from the beginning.

What is a UX maturity model?

To evaluate how close the company is to the ideals of user-centered design, you have to find out its position on the UX maturity scale. This is what the UX maturity model is made for.

There are various UX maturity models. In 2006, Jacob Nielsen of Nielsen Norman Group developed one of the most common scales of 8 levels. Recently, in 2021, the NNG researchers came up with a new model, this time of only 6 levels.

Knowing your place on the scale is not just a theoretical piece of information. The UX maturity model indicates the next step and explains how to get there.

Estimating the level of your own team is tricky. Try to think of the real situation, not the desired one. Here is what to look at when evaluating UX maturity:

Now, let’s see all the levels of UX maturity model in detail:

1. Absent

The first level might as well be called level zero. There’s not much to explain. At this point, no one in the company cares about user research.

Being so user ignorant is a characteristic of companies from the dawn of the computer age when the UX was not a thing. However, in some cases, modern startups also neglect user experience, especially when they believe that their cutting-edge tech innovation has such a high value to the users that usability doesn’t matter much.

In some cases, there are few people in the company who are aware of user experience and try to apply some of its principles by testing the products on themselves.

“Eating dog food”, a process when team members use their own products at early prototype stages, is a common way of testing that helps to bring up the bugs fast and efficiently. However, if this is the only user testing method you are using, the results are likely to be biased.

Orientation on team members works pretty well when they fall into the user persona of the product. In other cases, the reactions of developers and real users can be drastically different. Sadly, many people don’t realize it until they see the results of real UX research.

Companies stay at this stage until some of the executives learn about UX and decide to implement some practices in their work, or an external consultant brings up the importance of user research when asked to assess why the product fails at attracting customers.

2. Limited

Moving to this stage means that user experience maturity has reached that level when it takes into account actual users. The efforts are still very small and unsystematic, but it is a step forward. And even a small effort can make a big difference when we are talking about user experience. 

Some of the team members run usability research to test a new feature, and in most cases, it has a surprisingly tangible effect. However, usability testing still remains the main focus of UX research and often takes place at the late stages of the design process, which means that team members would be more hesitant to change the design according to the findings of testing. This way, the company misses on many benefits of the research.

At some point, when the effects start accumulating and the decision-makers decide to invest in UX intentionally, the company is ready to move to the next level:

3. Emergent

User experience starts taking its place in the company when dedicated UX professionals are hired. Yet, at this stage user research is a bit random and chaotic. It lacks processes and structure. Whenever there is a shortage of time or resources, UX work is just skipped.

To grow from this stage on, companies need to educate all team members about the importance of user experience, make it a part of company values, priorities, and standard processes.

4. Structured

At this stage, no one in the company can ignore users (or at least they have to pretend they care). It marks the appearance of a separate team of UX professionals who collaborate with each other, share their findings, and keep track of all user experience-related processes going on in the company.

UX team members organize their work in a way that creates a more complex and comprehensive vision of the user experience of the whole product or different products.

Structured work on user experience makes room for systematic processing of the information, which allows UX researchers to develop best practices based on previous research results and build standards of the research process on the experience that is already existing in the company. 

In smaller companies, where team size and the product volume does not require a whole team of UX researchers, this level of maturity can be diagnozed by presence of established user experience practices and guidelines. Even if there is no space for a researcher, UI/UX designers can mark a high level of UX maturity by dedicating a large chunk of work to user research (while using various UX research methods apart from usability testing).

Overall, the 4th stage is a breaking point for UX maturity: at this level, top management is absolutely aware of the need for UX research work and the shift to the next level is a question of time (and efforts of demonstrating the impact of research).

5. Integrated

With time, user experience strategies and processes refine and reach new levels of efficiency. The work follows well-beaten paths, thus creating UX professionals some space for experimenting and finding new methods to incorporate into their practices.

Effective work of the UX team makes the business benefits of user research absolutely clear and data-proven. 

An important feature of integrated UX is its connection to key business metrics: the company starts defining its success based on the quality of user experience, among other parameters.

6. User-driven

The next step roots UX practices deeply in different stages of the design process. Product managers are willing to run user research before even starting the design, and continue monitoring the results after the launch of the product. This is where design finally gets to embody the principles of design thinking in real life. The design process becomes user-centered and the team fully understands the importance of iterations.

When the company becomes user-driven, it means that users can be prioritized upon increasing revenue. Is that even possible? Well, some companies claim it is. However, many companies would reach as high as level 5 of the UX maturity scale — and that’s totally fine.

How do you move to the next level? A real story

Some people think that the ones responsible for educating product managers about the importance of user experience are UX designers, while others believe that any professional team lead and decision-maker has to know it well and raise the level of UX maturity of the team members and the company as a whole.

As a SaaS design agency, we see different levels of UX maturity in our client companies. Our designers always work very closely with the team, so everybody can watch our design process closely, witnessing the impact of user research. Naturally, the client team can level up in their design maturity when working with people dedicated to user-centered design.

However, for the success of this process, there has to be a motivated person on the client’s side. This is what happened when we were working with Acadeum, an edu tech app.

In the beginning of our collaboration, the CTO said that he expected the design culture in their company to rise during our cooperation. Before that, they had almost no understanding of the design process. So we decided to make a presentation of our process, conduct workshops in Miro, write follow-ups of meetings to keep all the stakeholders on track.

All these activities helped Acadeum to move on the scale of the UX maturity model. After reaching a certain milestone in the product, we had a retrospective discussing all the positive and negative moments in our work. Based on that, we made conclusions about our future work, too. 

As a result, we matured along with our clients. Nothing makes you as convinced about the importance of user experience as having to convince others about it.

Conclusion. What makes UX maturity?

If you are a product manager planning the UX growth of your company, you may think that since you have all the information at hand, you can jump directly to stage 6 or at least 4 and save a big deal of time. Can you?

Well, there’s no way we'd say it is impossible. Aim for the stars, and you'll get to level 3 (maybe). What's important is to be as objective as possible when evaluating the level of UX maturity of the company.

Having a team of dedicated UX professionals is a good start, but there is much more work to do on the way to UX maturity. 

Prioritizing user experience should become part of corporate values. All the team members, from customer support to the executives have to adhere to the standards of user experience and consider it in all processes. 

UX research should be conducted at all stages of the product life cycle: from the development of the first ideas to post-launch monitoring. The user experience should have a real impact on business processes, and vice versa, business success metrics should be tied to UX.

Are you willing to grow the maturity level of your company? Our UX professionals will be happy to help you! Drop us a line!

Our work as a product design agency for SaaS involves helping businesses at different stages of product lifecycles to visualize their ideas with the help of UI/UX design. Sometimes, clients come to us when they just make their first steps into the market. In such a situation, they usually ask for a demo, prototype, or a minimum viable product (MVP) design. Sometimes they want us to build a full product design right away. 

But it doesn’t mean they always understand what this or that word means in terms of design. All these terms may seem almost identical for aspiring startup founders, which is why they may build false expectations from the designers.

However, all of the above are different concepts that serve different purposes, and choosing the wrong one may cause a waste of valuable resources (which you just can’t let happen at the stage of an early startup). To figure out the difference between demo vs MVP vs prototype vs full product and define what approach to design you should expect from your UI/UX designers in each particular case, let’s analyze four real cases coming from our personal practice.

1. Cylynx that started its way in the market as a demo

Cylynx is a data analytics tool that helps businesses process valuable information by turning it into comprehensible graphs so that users can study data relationships, detect trends or discrepancies.

When they came to Eleken, Cylynx had a demo version of their platform and wanted to turn it into a minimum viable product. However, we won’t talk now about an MVP design (we’ll do it a bit later). Instead, let’s focus on the demo version and its role in Cylynx’s go-to-market strategy.

Their demo allowed potential users to perform two essential actions, while demonstrating the platform’s value:

1. Upload data from the computer (or choose a sample data).
2. Edit the visualization of it.

The demo version had limited functionality, and users could neither subscribe nor store their files in the software. But at that stage of Cylynx product development, it was not the goal.

What Cylynx wanted to achieve with building a demo was to help investors and potential customers imagine the value this platform could provide when fully-built.

• It, first of all, allowed the company to understand if they had enough customers willing to pay for their offer.
• Secondly, the demo let them raise money from investors to be able to move to the next stage of product development (an MVP).

So, after Cylynx proved that their idea is interesting for prospects and investors, they reached Eleken to help them improve the demo’s interface and turn it into an MVP to start getting real subscribers.

Now, let’s talk about what lessons we can take from this story.

In what situations you need a demo

Product demos usually depict a key feature or a certain flow users have when using software. They may come in various forms: a video, slide deck, clickable prototype, or else.

So, what is a demo, and when a startup founder may need it?

Businesses create demos to demonstrate other people the value that their product or service may offer if they bought it/if that product existed.

If we talk about a demo meaning a finished product, it usually serves the purpose of a walkthrough (or a tutorial) that illustrates to the viewer how the software works.

Duolingo shows all its features in a demo video to give the viewer a clear understanding of how the app works

In case it’s an early stage product, the demo helps people assume how beneficial a product would be for them once it’s available. It often comes in a form of a clickable design or a piece of code together with mockup designs.

In both variants, businesses use demos to close the deal. Their goal is to convince somebody (in most cases potential customers, or investors) that the concept is worth paying for.

So, as a startup founder, you should design a demo once you’ve validated your customer and problem assumptions, and want to 

• get enough early adopters that want to pay for your offer
• find investments for your further development. 

What to expect from demo design

As the purpose of demo solutions is to help businesses close the deal, their success depends not on the accurate and detailed feature representation, but on your ability to demonstrate how beneficial the product will be for those who use it. 

So, here’s what your design approach should be like:

1. Define the reason you want to design a demo (selling an existing product to customers, attracting investments, gaining first users). 
2. Research and define the target audience, and what they expect from your product. Consider if they have any previous knowledge of your company, or if you have to present yourself within software that has not yet been released.
3. Define what form of a demo design will best communicate the product’s value to your target audience (clickable prototype, Google slides, video, and so on). 
4. Create a visual asset. The design should be engaging and memorable as it’s intended to sell. But don’t focus on details too much: you need to build it fast, and it’s not the final version of your product.
5. Write a script that clearly communicates your mission and sells your idea well.
6. Run short tests before bringing your demo to the market.

And remember, all you need from design at this stage is to ensure it helps the viewer imagine what they could achieve if they had your product.

2. Tromzo that asked for the first prototype design of their product

Tromzo is a security app that helps developers find vulnerabilities in their code. As an early-stage startup, they had a great idea to develop a solution that would be both technically strong and easy to use. But to implement this product idea, they needed to find investment.

That’s why Tromzo hired Eleken to help them design a prototype that would convince potential investors that their product is both valuable and competitive.

Our scope of work on this project included designing a prototype from the ground up that would include all the key screens of the software and present complicated technical data in a comprehensive way. As Tromzo’s goal was to attract investors, our top priority was to make the prototype visually appealing and do it fast. 

We dedicated a lot of time to the research phase to better understand how the app is supposed to work, and in just one month, the prototype design was ready and Tromzo could start negotiating with potential investors.

As you may have noticed, the goals Tromzo wanted to achieve with its prototype are very similar to those that are achieved with the demo. So what’s the difference between a demo solution and a prototype?

In what situations you need a prototype

Prototypes and demos are often used to refer to one and the same thing, especially when we’re talking about early-stage products. And as you already know, demos may come in different forms, including a prototype. In its turn, a prototype may serve different goals.

Let’s try to be more specific. When talking about prototypes, most people would imagine a rough version of a product that you show to prospective customers for the proof of concept (it’s more internally oriented and may be anything, from a pencil drawing to HTML code). Demos, in their turn, are thought of as visually appealing and customer-ready assets.

So, a UX prototype is a rough version of a product that allows the viewer to understand what idea, user flow, and layout it has, and how the future product is going to work. A stratup founder may need it to

• Present the idea to investors and persuade them that it is feasible and worth putting money into full-fledged development.
• Test the idea before releasing to determine whether it’s actually going to work or not without busting the whole budget.
• Test the design to see if it needs any improvements, or if it meets your expectations at all.
• Collect user feedback to define if your potential users like what you build for them and reveal product shortcomings. 

What to expect from prototype design

Prototype design process is quite similar to the demo design. But while demos are not focused on accurate feature representation, when creating a prototype you’d probably want to showcase the functionality people would use in a full-scale product. 

So, when designing a prototype 

• Keep focused on its goal and audience.
• Choose an iterative design process as it’s important to deliver prototypes fast and often.
• You may start with low-fidelity mockups and improve them after receiving feedback.
• Make small adjustments each time you test the prototype on users.

3. Haven Diagnostics that needed an MVP design

Haven Diagnostics is helping corporate offices improve the teams' health and productivity by using mathematical models for projecting the infection risk. They came up with this idea when the COVID-19 pandemic burst out.

To begin with, Haven Diagnostics was making agent-based models for private clients. As they saw the first positive feedback from customers, they decided it was time to grow. Still, to minimize their own risk of spending too much money into developing something that their target audience wouldn't find valuable, they, first of all, wanted to start with an MVP.

The goal of an MVP was to understand users well before jumping into further development. That’s why our scope of work included the initial research that startups must conduct before launching. It involved defining the value proposition, understanding customer problems, brainstorming, competitor analysis, and more.

In what situations you need an MVP

We can define an MVP as the product with minimum functionality necessary to confirm or disprove your hypothesis. The main difference between a demo solution and an MVP is that, unlike a demo, an MVP solution is a fully-functional product that contains key features allowing real users to experience the product’s value on their own.

Businesses build MVPs to verify if customers are ready to use their products and pay for them a commercially viable price, before investing more in development.

Additional goals for building an MVP might include 

• A speedy launch.
• A low-budget market entry.
• Gathering as much high-quality feedback from early adopters as possible.
• Determining the product-market fit.

What to expect from MVP design

While designing demos and prototypes can take several days or weeks, with an MVP design you should be ready that it can take months.

Since MVP’s main goal is to test the concept and define how users will adopt it, your design approach should be focused on

• Researching the market, and competitors.
• Conducting interviews with potential/existing customers to define their problems and expectations.
• Creating user flows and customer journey maps
• Verifying all the ideas your team produces with real users.
• Designing core functionality only with the help of wireframing and prototyping.
• Organizing all the visual elements into a UI kit to be able to follow a consistent visual style across the whole product as you grow.

4. TendrX that requested to create a full first version of their product

TenderX is a freight tendering platform that connects global shippers and carriers so they can get to know each other.

When TendrX's founders came to Eleken for design help, they already had a freight tender platform that automates the entire tendering process, successfully operating on the market. TendrX was supposed to become a pre-step in this process.

So, taking into account the fact that the TendrX team had a great experience of working in a logistics industry and already knew their target audience with their pain points well, they decided to omit building MVP and jumped straight into full product development.

It took us about three months to design the first version of the TendrX platform. Our scope of work included working out the product details first by building wireframes and then turning them into mockups.

In what situations you need a full-fledged solution

A full product solution is the one that offers customers more than just basic features and this way exceeds their expectations.

A full product is the next step of a minimum viable product. If your MVP proved to be viable, and customer feedback shows that people like it and are willing to pay for your solution, it’s time to move further.

When you go beyond MVP it means that you'll have to constantly improve your offering by making iterative changes.

What to expect from full-product design

Once your MVP is adopted, you start receiving feedback from users that would give you many ideas on how to improve and evolve your product into a fully-fledged solution. 

Your design approach would probably look like this:

• Gathering customer feedback to define what challenges they face by conducting user interviews, analyzing support tickets, and so on.
• Ideating possible solutions to those problems with the help of brainstorming techniques.
• Creating a working prototype to embody your ideas.
• Test prototypes with users to reveal what works and what doesn’t.
• Repeat the whole process again.

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Summarizing key facts about demos, prototypes, MVPs, and full products

Despite a common belief, you don’t have to start implementing by building an MVP.

• First of all,  you should quickly create several variants of your idea with rough prototypes, show them to as many potential customers as you can to collect their feedback, and try to identify which version solves customer problems best.
• After it’s done, build a demo to present your commercial offer and prove its value to prospects to see if they are willing to pay for it, and to investors, if you need additional resources to continue working on the product.
• Next, when you know there’re enough people willing to buy your product, you can design an MVP to test how the market reacts to your idea. And by the way, Eleken can help with that.
• Finally, if everything goes well, and people buy your offer, you can continue with a fully-fledged product to meet the maximum of customers’ expectations.

After all, demos, prototypes, MVPs, and full products are all useful tools in the early stages of product development. But you should carefully choose which one you need to build first for your specific case.

And if you need a dedicated design partner to help you implement your product idea, contact Eleken for a consultation.