UX Outsourcing: Why Is It Worth Using The Services Of External Experts?

UX ( user experience ) is a buzzword, a catch-up word that has penetrated business and technological salons. Although he is making an astonishing career, not everyone knows what it means for a specific business. Wikipedia states that UX is “the whole experience the user experiences while using the product.” Sounds good, but what does it mean?

The company sells the product, and the user uses it. In theory, the better the user experience, the better. The thing is, to improve his experience, you need to design it consciously, and thoughtful design, supported by research, costs money. The UX agency should design user experiences in such a way as to simultaneously achieve the business goals of its client and have a real impact on its profits.

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The global leader focuses on design.

Diebold Nixdorf is one of the world’s leading ATM manufacturers, producing at least a third of all ATM devices. Most of the cash registers in Biedronka, Decathlon, IKEA, C&A, and Triumph stores also come from this factory, and its equipment is used by Lidl and Tesco employees. Therefore, we are talking about the experiences of not thousands but millions of users who come into contact with the products of this colossus of the retail and banking industry daily.

Katowice is an important point on the world map for Diebold Nixdorf. This is where the design team is working on a gigantic challenge. Our task was to standardize the interface so that it was a coherent product with a distinctive style from the users’ perspective. Our portfolio looked as if a different company made each product at some stage. We missed what, for example, Google has, where, despite the variety of services, they are somewhat uniform. We renew each software step by step. As much as possible, we also create a uniform interface – says Łukasz Krebok, head of the Katowice UX team, which initiated changes on a global scale. Ad hoc jumping actions made no sense in this case. –Design is an endless story – if you are interested in real changes, focus on continuous development – she adds.

How to get know-how that is not just a theory?

Diebold Nixdorf offered to cooperate with our agency despite difficult experiences with others. Why did what fail before work this time? Both sides were aware from the beginning that there was no point in switching between orders and better or worse answers to them. The Diebold Nixdorf UX user experience team knew they needed some rather unusual outsourcing.

You can read a lot about processes, but there is no information about what a design process looks like on such a large scale. Such knowledge cannot be found on groups or websites of UX collectives, and this is not information about the marketing potential of the “15 tips how your e-commerce can convert better”. (…) The knowledge we need is nowhere to be found. You have to get it yourself – admits Łukasz Krebok.

In the Mobee Dick team, we understand cooperation – we help the client acquire know-how, which will become a permanent asset of the company. It was not the organization’s knowledge that went outside to the designers, but we – the designers – entered the organization. Due to the physical presence of our specialists at the Katowice headquarters of Diebold Nixdorf, the client remained independent of the contractor, i.e., us.

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Flexibility or death

What does the product improvement process look like? The company starts the project assuming that its implementation will take one year. Recruitment of a highly qualified UX specialist takes several months; then, he must acquire the know-how of a company operating in a specific market. At the same time, it is known from the outset that this knowledgeable designer or information architect will be needed to a much lesser extent – or at all – after completing the project. It is also possible that a researcher will turn out to be more useful at a later stage of the project.

Our team consists of experienced specialists who can smoothly join the project, then move away a bit and, if necessary, intensify the activities again. We are talking about long-term cooperation with varying intensity levels, depending on the changing circumstances and needs. Such an arrangement does not restrict the organization – on the contrary, it gives it the necessary or even the necessary flexibility.

We joined the Diebold Nixdorf team to improve the design process together. We introduced our know-how to improve the organization from the inside, and our experience and knowledge met with the experience and knowledge of the client. In such a system, synergy ceases to be an empty word – a new quality arises that would not be created by anyone alone.

– From the beginning, I signaled that we would need different specialists at different times – information architects, UI scientists, researchers. Everyone is needed, but not all at one time. We wanted continuity, not just the execution of orders and paying invoices for them. Supplying the team with external designers works very well because this additional rotation is a breath of fresh air for our ideas, the possibility of validation. Also, sometimes a team needs something “already,” and we don’t have the resources to do it. Then I can always ask for emergency support. It is such a buffer – admits Krebok.

What about the costs?

Such a business model sounds interesting, perhaps even encouraging to many, but is of little importance if it is not profitable in the long run. Does cooperation with a research and design company bring benefits? Here is how Łukasz Krebok convinced his superiors to develop the UX department and cooperate with our agency:

– I had to show value. Slogans such as “design is a necessity today” mean nothing. The keyword costs. Reducing the code by several dozen percent through the use of a framework will mean a reduction in costs by this and so much – this is a specific argument in a conversation about the real value of UX. Of course, you can say over and over again that UX is important, but this will not bring any results.

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