Last week I talked about breaking down business silos and getting different departments to work together on user experience. That kind of cross-functional collaboration can feel like an uphill battle, especially when you're trying to shift organizational culture. So, today I want to share a powerful shortcut that can make your life considerably easier: building your credibility internally by looking outside your organization.

I know that sounds counterintuitive. When you're fighting to change culture from within, why would you spend time looking outward? But external validation can accelerate your progress in ways that internal efforts alone cannot.

External validation falls into two broad categories, and both matter.

First, when you're making arguments about how things should be done, external evidence adds weight. Every time you express an opinion or recommend a direction, you want data, case studies, or expert quotes backing you up. This transforms your suggestion from "here's what I think" into "here's what the evidence shows."

Second, your personal reputation matters. If people outside your organization respect you, people inside your organization will take you more seriously. An external reputation builds internal credibility faster than almost anything else.

Let me walk you through practical ways to leverage both of these categories, starting with that first one: backing up your arguments with external evidence.

I use Perplexity constantly to find supporting evidence for positions I'm taking. I've even done quick searches during meetings before expressing an opinion. Whether you're in a presentation, a meeting, or writing a report, never just state something and expect people to accept it.

Try a prompt like "provide me with statistics that reinforce the argument that UX design provides tangible business benefits." In seconds, you'll have credible sources to cite, especially if selecting academic sources as the search parameter.

The principle applies to any argument you're making. Always have evidence ready.

But data and research aren't the only forms of external validation you can leverage. Sometimes the most powerful external voice is an actual person.

As a UX consultant, I'm often brought into organizations where the internal UX team is just as skilled as I am, sometimes more so. Yet they still hire someone like me. I've thought hard about why that happens, and I see three reasons external experts add value:

• Authority from cost. Your salary is a hidden expense that nobody sees regularly. When leadership hires an external consultant, that cost is visible and immediate. Because they've just spent money, people feel they need to listen. It's not entirely rational, but it's real.
• Second opinions carry weight. When an internal team member and an external expert share the same view, that consensus matters to senior management. Two voices saying the same thing are harder to dismiss.
• Impartiality on sensitive topics. If you're asking for more resources or budget, you might appear self-interested. An external expert making the same recommendation seems objective.

If you don't have budget for consultants, you can still reference external experts. People like me publish content constantly, and you can cite that work to reinforce your arguments.

Expert voices carry weight, but they're still qualitative. If you want to make an argument that's truly hard to dismiss, you need numbers that show how you stack up against the competition.

External benchmarking gives you objective comparisons that stakeholders understand. This works the same way NPS scores do in marketing: they let you measure your performance against competitors in your sector and beyond.

For user experience specifically, I recommend the System Usability Scale. You can run this standardized test on your own website and your competitors' sites, then compare scores. This creates a compelling, numbers-based argument that cuts through subjective debate.

Recognized benchmarking tools give you credibility that opinion alone cannot provide.

Everything I've shared so far applies whether you're in-house or external, but if you're a freelancer or agency working with clients, external validation becomes even more critical because you don't have the luxury of building credibility over months or years in-house.

When you walk into a client project, bring evidence with you from day one. Reference industry benchmarks, cite recognized experts, and show case studies from similar organizations. Your clients are paying you precisely because you have that external perspective, so lean into it.

The System Usability Scale I mentioned works brilliantly in client work. You can demonstrate objectively where their site stands compared to competitors, which makes conversations about improvements much easier. Numbers cut through internal politics in ways that opinions cannot.

Now, all of these tactics rely on external sources and voices you're borrowing. But the most powerful form of external credibility is the kind you build yourself.

I'd encourage you to go further and start building your external reputation actively. Publish that digital playbook you've been working on. Gov.uk did exactly this, and when people across the industry started referencing and discussing their work, it built massive credibility for them internally.

They took it a step further by entering their website for awards. When they won the Design award in the UK, one of the most prestigious design awards in the world and a first for a website, their internal credibility skyrocketed.

Think about ways to get external recognition. Speak at meetups. Write articles. Share your work publicly. That external visibility translates directly into internal influence.

When you combine external credibility with the internal relationship-building and culture change work we've been discussing, you create momentum that's hard to stop. You're not just one voice inside the organization anymore. You become someone whose expertise is recognized beyond your company's walls, and that changes how leadership sees you.

Next week I'll tackle a question that inevitably comes up once you start building this credibility and pushing for change: how do you actually prove that UX work delivers value? We'll look at practical ways to quantify your impact and show ROI to stakeholders who care about numbers.

Paul

Last week, I talked about getting stakeholders actively involved in UX activities like research sessions and workshops. That engagement is brilliant for building empathy and support, but it only takes you so far if everyone retreats back to their own departmental bubble afterward.

This week, I want to focus on something that will amplify all that good work: breaking down the silos that keep teams isolated from one another.

In most organizations, different teams work in their own little worlds. Developers, marketers, product owners, business analysts; they all contribute to and impact the user experience, but they rarely talk to each other beyond handoffs and status updates.

This creates two problems for you as a UX leader.

First, it causes friction in the user experience itself. When users move from one part of your product or service to another, they're effectively moving between teams. If those teams don't collaborate, users literally fall between the gaps.

I've seen this happen over and over. The sales team promises one thing, but another department doesn't deliver it. Or a customer goes through a complaints process and gets a resolution, but that information never reaches finance, who keeps invoicing them anyway. Users get caught in the crossfire of departments that aren't talking to each other.

These breakdowns aren't just annoying. They damage trust, create support overhead, and drive customers away. And from a UX perspective, you can have the most beautiful interface in the world, but if the experience breaks down because departments aren't aligned, none of that matters.

The second area is much simpler. Your ability to change the culture will be limited by which teams you can access and influence. If you're stuck in one silo, your impact stays trapped there too.

When you start collaborating across departmental lines, good things happen.

You plug the gaps in the user experience. When teams work together, you can identify and fix those places where users fall through the cracks. Sales and delivery get aligned. Support issues get fed back to the teams who can fix them. Information flows across departmental boundaries instead of stopping at them.

You gain better business insights. You'll understand how UX affects different parts of the organization and what motivates other teams. That knowledge helps you frame UX in ways that matter to them.

You build cross-departmental UX advocacy. When other teams see how UX helps them achieve their goals, they become advocates. That momentum spreads much faster than anything you could do alone.

You increase your team's influence. As you collaborate and demonstrate value, you become essential to strategy and decision-making across departments, not just within your own corner.

You streamline processes. Collaboration helps you integrate UX into different workflows and ensure those processes work better together. You deliver results faster and remove false assumptions people have about UX being slow or impractical.

You can't be everywhere at once, especially early on. Focus your energy on four groups that will give you the biggest return.

Sales and marketing feel the impact of poor user experience most directly. If you help them improve conversion rates, average order values, or lead quality, you'll be improving the metrics that senior management actually cares about. Everyone wants to make more money, and this is your most direct path to those conversations.

Customer support cares deeply about retention. It's much more expensive to win a new customer than keep an existing one, so reducing churn matters. Work with support to identify where UX improvements can reduce complaints and improve retention. They're usually quite receptive because better UX makes their job easier.

Development has a huge impact on user experience through performance, security, and technical implementation. They're often frustrated by bottlenecks from design teams, so working with them improves the relationship and streamlines handoffs. You can also empower developers to handle some of the more routine UX work themselves.

Business analysts (if your organization has them) evaluate potential projects and opportunities. They understand the importance of user acceptance, but they often don't feel equipped to assess it. If you can help them evaluate projects from a user perspective, you become invaluable to their process.

Look, let me breakdown in what has worked for me.

Conduct stakeholder interviews. Book casual chats with representatives from these departments. Ask about their challenges and explore ways your team can support them. This shows genuine interest and positions you as someone looking to help, not looking for help. That's powerful.

Offer resources. Provide tools, time, and advice to help them overcome challenges. Give before you ask. It builds trust much faster than any formal presentation ever will.

Run exchange programs. Suggest shadowing each other for a day or swapping team members for a week. Yes, it's an investment, but understanding each other's roles transforms how you work together.

Collaborate on standards. When you're setting standards for accessibility, content, or research methods, engage other departments in creating them. They'll have valuable input, the standards will work better for everyone, and people are much more likely to follow standards they helped create.

Prototype together. Get different people in a room (a developer, a marketer, you) and just create something collaboratively. Free from normal constraints, working toward a shared vision. It's rewarding and it breaks down barriers fast.

If you possibly can, suggest that your UX team becomes its own center of excellence, independent from any existing business silo. It eliminates the perception that you're only responsible for one area and recognizes that user experience affects every part of the organization.

It's not always possible, and if it isn't, don't worry. But it's worth raising the conversation.

So far in this series, I've focused on building relationships and demonstrating value internally. But sometimes the most powerful way to build credibility inside your organization is to bring in validation from outside.

Next week, I'll talk about using external benchmarking, industry recognition, and expert voices to reinforce your position and give your recommendations extra weight. It's a tactic I've used more times than I can count, and it works remarkably well.

Last week I talked about culture hacking and how to shift your organization toward a more UX-friendly way of working. This week, I want to get practical about one of the tools that makes culture change possible: internal marketing.

I have some bad news. If you are a design leader, part of your job involves becoming a bit of a marketer. Not the fancy kind with huge budgets and billboards, but the scrappy, guerrilla kind that gets attention without spending a fortune.

Why? Because if you want to change how people in your organization perceive users and value your team, you need to get their attention first. Traditional marketing does not work when you are trying to reach your colleagues, so you need unconventional, low-cost strategies instead.

Before I get into specific tactics, you need to understand the real goal here: creating UX ambassadors throughout your organization.

You cannot be everywhere at once. You cannot attend every meeting, influence every decision, or educate every colleague personally. But you can identify and equip people across different departments who care about users and give them the tools to spread UX thinking in their teams.

This is how culture change actually happens. Not through presentations from the UX team, but through conversations between colleagues who trust each other.

So how do you find and develop these ambassadors? You start by identifying who is already interested, then you equip them to advocate for UX in their corner of the organization.

One of the most obvious tools is a newsletter. When I start working with an organization, one of the first things I do is send an email to as many people as possible across the company.

In that email, I ask people to opt in if they are interested in UX, what the UX team is doing, or how UX can make a difference. Then I build a landing page that outlines the benefits of subscribing and what the newsletter will cover, treating it like a proper marketing site.

Why? Because the people who choose to subscribe have just identified themselves as potential UX ambassadors. These are the people most likely to care about users and most willing to champion UX thinking in their teams. Start with them.

Once people opt into the newsletter, you need to send it regularly. I normally set a schedule of between once a month and every couple of weeks. Consistency keeps UX front of mind and gives your ambassadors fresh material to share with their colleagues.

The content matters significantly. Too often, newsletters become self-promotion for the UX team, and nobody wants that. Instead, your newsletter should equip people to become UX advocates in their own teams.

Share practical tips they can pass on to colleagues. Provide explanations of UX principles that are easy to remember and repeat. Include success stories and case studies they can reference in meetings. Give them language and examples that make it easier to champion user-centered thinking when you are not in the room.

Think of your newsletter as a toolkit for your ambassadors, not a marketing brochure for your team.

Another powerful tool is a discussion forum, whether in Slack or Teams. When people sign up for the newsletter, invite them to join the forum as well.

This is where your ambassadors can get support when they run into resistance. Someone in marketing tries to advocate for simpler language and gets shut down. Someone in sales pushes back on a feature request that ignores user needs and faces pushback. These moments are where UX culture is either built or broken.

The forum gives your ambassadors a place to share challenges, ask for advice, and get encouragement from others who are fighting similar battles. It also helps them learn from each other's successes and failures.

A forum keeps the conversation going between newsletters and turns isolated UX advocates into a connected network supporting each other across the organization.

To move up the priority ladder within your organization, PR stunts can be very effective. These do not need to be expensive, just memorable.

For example, I once replaced corporate wall art with user personas and design principles. We did get into trouble for that one, but it got people talking. Other approaches include:

• Challenging executives to complete usability tests
• Creating screen savers with UX stats and user quotes
• Having team members dress up to make a point about organizational culture

The goal is to create moments that people remember and talk about.

Running an internal conference is another way to get attention and build support. You can provide lunch, secure sponsorship from UX platforms for expo stalls, invite guest speakers, bring in end users, run breakout groups, and demonstrate user testing.

Having executives speak at these events is particularly effective because it forces them to think about user experience and publicly align themselves with UX initiatives.

Circulating video clips of user testing sessions can create real buzz. Both successes and horror stories work well. Seeing real users struggle with your products is far more powerful than any report you could write.

Keep the clips short and focused on specific moments that illustrate a point clearly.

Physical items can keep user experience front of mind in a way that digital content cannot. I have seen notebooks with customer quotes, persona mugs, and coasters with UX tips work well.

These items serve as constant reminders that users exist and matter, even when people are not actively thinking about UX.

You really need to find your inner marketer when it comes to building the profile of user experience within the company. Some of these suggestions might feel embarrassing or inappropriate for your organization, but you need to push the boundaries of what you think you can get away with.

If you always do what is safe and what has been done before, you will never see change. But if you get fired, do not blame me!

Next week, I will talk about one of the most powerful ways to build support for UX: engaging stakeholders directly in UX activities. When executives and colleagues see user research and testing firsthand, everything changes.

Last week, I talked about how to boost your influence as a UX leader by focusing on the right activities and building your reputation. This week, I want to explore something closely related. How do you actually shift your organization's culture to be more user-centered?

I know that sounds like a lot of work. And yes, there is effort involved. But if you've been applying what we've covered in previous lessons, you've likely done much of the groundwork already. Plus, culture hacking can be surprisingly fun.

There are four main techniques you can use to embed UX into your organization's DNA:

Engagement and collaboration. You're probably doing this already in your day-to-day work. The goal is to amp it up and bring more people into the UX conversation.

Education and awareness. We've talked about this extensively in earlier lessons. It's about helping colleagues understand what UX is and why it matters.

Feedback and iteration. Creating systems that give people ongoing visibility into how users experience your products.

Celebration and reinforcement. Recognizing and highlighting UX wins to build momentum.

Let me walk through each of these with some practical examples you can try.

This is about bringing people together and getting them excited about user experience. A few tactics that work well:

Hackathons. Organize events where diverse teams collaborate on user-centered solutions. The emphasis should be on creativity and fun. Let people dream up great experiences without getting bogged down in compliance issues or technical limitations.

UX champions. Find people across your organization who already care about user experience. There will be more than you think. Create a space where they can come together, whether in Teams or Slack, to share experiences and frustrations. Share educational materials with them. Invest in these people so they become UX ambassadors across the organization.

Inclusive workshops. Consider traditional workshops but expand who you invite. Include people from legal or compliance teams. The more you engage with them, the more they'll understand what you do. And the more willing they'll be to adapt their way of working to support better user experiences.

Here are some techniques for building UX awareness that go beyond standard training:

Storytelling sessions. Run lunch-and-learns where you get people together for 20 to 30 minutes. But instead of presenting UX best practices, ask people to share terrible user experiences they've encountered. Not from your company, obviously. People love sharing their frustrations. It builds empathy for what users go through.

Gamification. Introduce game-like elements to incentivize stakeholders. I once created a leaderboard ranking different departments based on their ability to deliver outstanding experiences. Instead of boring monthly analytics reports filled with vanity metrics, we showed UX performance metrics that sparked healthy competition between teams.

Empathy training. Create exercises to help stakeholders put themselves in users' positions. This might involve completing user tasks themselves, viewing pages for limited time periods to simulate scanning behavior, or sitting in on user testing sessions.

Culture hack days. Dedicate time for teams to discuss how to create a more user-centric organization. Ask them directly what needs to change and encourage brainstorming sessions.

Visual management tools. Use dashboards or leaderboards to display user feedback and UX project metrics. Keep UX goals visible and actionable.

For example, in one organization where I worked, we updated the content management system with a new, user-centric information architecture. To help content creators adapt, we created a dashboard showing their responsible pages alongside user feedback. We included a simple poll asking users if they found each page useful. We provided tips for improvement right there in the dashboard. It created a continuous feedback loop that kept people engaged with how users experienced their content.

It's important to build up your colleagues and acknowledge success. Celebrate user milestones and project successes related to UX improvements. When you celebrate, focus on the product owner and team rather than individual contributions. Highlight the techniques they used and the results they achieved. Try to attach financial value when you can.

Consider implementing recognition programs. Annual awards for the most user-centric people or teams can work well. It might seem cheesy, but it generates genuine excitement around user experience.

Finally, maintain regular check-ins with product owners and stakeholders. Hold discussions about UX best practices, share updates, and celebrate progress to sustain momentum and enthusiasm.

If you're a freelancer or agency working with clients, culture hacking looks a bit different. You can't restructure their organization or set up internal champion networks. But you can plant seeds.

Try running a single culture hack day as part of your engagement. Frame it as a workshop where you facilitate discussion about barriers to great user experiences. You're not telling them what to change. You're helping them identify it themselves.

Another approach is to create mini feedback loops within your project scope. If you're redesigning a section of their site, set up a simple dashboard showing before-and-after user feedback. When stakeholders see real user reactions to improvements, it often sparks wider conversations about user-centered culture. You're modeling what ongoing UX practice could look like.

The key is showing, not telling. Demonstrate the value through contained examples they can then scale internally.

These four techniques give you a solid foundation for culture hacking. But there's one thread running through all of this. The need to actively market and promote user experience across your organization.

Next week, I'll explore specific tactics to proactively market UX design within your organization. Because sometimes being good at UX isn't enough. You need to be good at talking about it too.

Last week, we talked about the key UX topics you need to educate your organization on. But education is just the foundation. Today we're diving into something equally crucial, boosting your influence and perception of UX within your organization.

Changing your organization's culture to be more user-centric isn't a sprint. It's a marathon. I've learned this the hard way more times than I'd like to admit.

When I first started trying to shift organizational thinking toward UX, I thought I could bulldoze through resistance with compelling presentations and undeniable data. That approach went about as well as trying to change the weather by shouting at clouds.

The reality is that cultural change in organizations is genuinely challenging, and there are solid reasons why.

Most organizations have what I call "change paralysis." The longer a company has existed, the more entrenched its current culture becomes. It's like trying to redirect a river that's been flowing the same way for decades. Possible, but requiring patience and strategy.

The existing culture often directly clashes with user-centric thinking. I've seen companies where the quarterly targets obsession makes it nearly impossible to talk about long-term benefits like customer lifetime value or loyalty. These benefits take months or years to materialize, but if your leadership team only thinks in 90-day cycles, you're fighting an uphill battle.

There's also a fundamental lack of understanding about UX value. Many organizations simply don't have a clear vision of how UX delivers business benefits. Without that foundation, any attempt at culture change feels like pushing against a wall.

What we're really doing is hacking the organization's culture, reshaping it to foster behaviors that align with user experience values. This isn't about being sneaky. It's about being smart.

Here's what I've learned works.

Be subtle, not forceful. While you could try to force change through authority (if you have it), it rarely sticks long-term. The more forcefully you push, the more resistance you'll encounter. Think gentle river, not battering ram.

Make incremental changes. If you're being subtle, you can't rush things. I constantly monitor what's working and what isn't, then adapt accordingly. Give people time to adopt changes before moving to the next thing. Otherwise, you'll overwhelm everyone and lose momentum.

Sustain the effort. I've seen too many organizations start cultural changes with great enthusiasm, only to watch them fizzle out. Consistent, incremental improvement over a prolonged period is what creates lasting impact.

Don't expect quick results, and don't despise small beginnings. At first, it feels like pushing a giant snowball. Exhausting and seemingly pointless. But once you build momentum, change happens faster and faster.

The challenging part is that you're likely doing this culture hacking work on top of your regular responsibilities. It's demanding, especially at the start. Sometimes you need to step back from individual projects to focus on building that crucial momentum for change.

Look at your organization this week and identify one small, subtle change you could make that nudges toward user-centric thinking. Maybe it's asking one different question in a meeting, sharing one customer insight in a team chat, or suggesting one small process tweak.

Start there. Culture change isn't about grand gestures. It's about consistent, thoughtful pressure applied in the right direction over time.

What's the smallest change you could make this week that would plant a seed for user-centric thinking?

Next week, we'll dive deeper into the specific techniques of culture hacking. The practical strategies for shaping a UX-friendly organization from within. I'll share the tactical approaches that actually work to create lasting cultural change.

Last week, I talked about the importance of educating your colleagues on UX best practices and the different educational approaches you should consider. This week, I want to get more specific about what topics to prioritize when building your educational content.

I take a pragmatic approach to this task because otherwise it can feel incredibly intimidating. Instead of creating a comprehensive UX curriculum covering everything under the sun, I focus on three targeted areas that will give you the biggest impact.

The first area I focus on is the errors I frequently see colleagues making when they try to do user experience work themselves. This is crucial because as we democratize UX across the organization, more people will naturally be attempting these activities and making predictable mistakes.

For example, one mistake I see constantly is leaving user testing too late in the project, when it's expensive and difficult to make substantial changes. When I spot this pattern, I create educational content about early user research and testing, explaining the benefits and cost savings of getting feedback when you can still act on it.

The second area covers topics where you see the most pushback and resistance from stakeholders. These are the friction points that cause arguments and slow down projects.

A classic example is colleagues who want to start building without validating that there's a genuine user need for what they're creating. By creating educational material around user validation techniques, you can prevent these conflicts before they happen.

The third area is simply the questions you find yourself answering over and over again. Things like "How do I run a survey to gather user feedback?" or "What's the difference between a usability test and user research?"

Keep a running list of these questions, and you'll quickly see patterns emerge that are worth turning into educational resources.

Your educational library will grow and evolve over time. You don't need everything in place to start. Just begin with the topics that come up most often, cause the most arguments, or trip people up most frequently.

For user testing specifically, while you'll eventually want to cover everything from eye-tracking studies to advanced analytics, start with the quick wins. Focus on simple methods like 5-second tests, first-click tests, and analyzing heatmaps or session recordings in tools like Hotjar and Clarity. These require minimal time investment beyond analysis, making them perfect gateway drugs to more robust testing.

Content writing is another excellent entry point. Unless you're working exclusively on apps, most digital services are content-heavy. Since many people are already creating content that directly affects the user experience, providing guidance here feels immediately relevant and useful. If your team needs deeper guidance on this topic, I offer a website content strategy workshop that covers everything from information architecture to quality control.

Finally, it also helps to find a natural entry point that resonates with people when educating. For example, I've found that stakeholders often want to know how to improve their search rankings, which gives you a perfect segue into topics like writing for the web and accessibility. When teaching accessibility, I always emphasize that it's not just about accommodating people with disabilities. It's about helping people with situational or temporary limitations too. Making things accessible improves usability for everyone, regardless of their cognitive or physical abilities.

The beauty of this approach is that your educational material feels immediately practical rather than theoretical. People can see the direct connection between what you're teaching and the problems they're trying to solve.

Remember, there's no shortage of UX topics you could cover. The key is starting with what people are actually asking about, what's causing friction in your projects, and what you find yourself explaining repeatedly. This ensures your educational material resonates with people and makes a real difference to how they work.

If you run a freelance practice or agency, this same framework works brilliantly for client education. Track the mistakes you see clients making project after project. Document the points where you get the most pushback from stakeholders. Keep a list of questions clients ask repeatedly. Then turn those into educational resources you can share proactively. A simple guide on "How to write effective user research questions" or "Why we test prototypes before building" can prevent countless difficult conversations and project delays. Better yet, position this education as value-add rather than billable work. It builds trust, demonstrates expertise, and makes you indispensable.

Next week, I'll dive into how to boost your influence across the organization and transform how UX is perceived company-wide. This is the final piece of becoming a true UX leader.

If I had to pick one part of this new way of working that matters most, it would be education.

Education is what makes democratizing UX possible. It’s the lever that lets you scale your influence far beyond the handful of projects you can personally touch.

When you invest in education, two things happen.

First, you raise the profile of users across the organization. People begin to see what UX actually involves and why it matters. They notice the benefits of doing it right and the costs of ignoring it. The more you teach, the more people start thinking about users every day.

Second, you empower your colleagues. Training gives them confidence to try UX activities for themselves. Suddenly, user research or testing doesn’t feel mysterious or out of reach. With a little support, they can make user-centered decisions without waiting on you.

But the way you educate is just as important as the fact you’re doing it. Too many UX teams rely on just one approach (usually formal workshops) and miss the variety of ways people learn.

Let’s break down some of the educational options available to you.

Workshops are the backbone of most UX education efforts. Done in person, they create a sense of community. People ask questions, share ideas, and feel part of something bigger. That social energy makes the lessons stick.

Remote workshops can work well too, but they’re more draining. Anything beyond 90 minutes and people’s attention starts to fade. So if you’d normally run a six-hour workshop in person, break it into four 90-minute online sessions. Shorter chunks keep people engaged and give them time to process.

You can also turn workshops into self-learning experiences. That’s what you’re going through right now: a full-day session broken into smaller lessons you can dip into at your own pace. The trade-off is less interaction and community, but you gain flexibility. People can revisit the material whenever they need a refresher.

Not every learning opportunity needs to be deep. Sometimes, the goal is to spark interest and build momentum. Think TED Talk-style lunch-and-learns. Twenty minutes, some food, and a clear takeaway.

You don’t have to be the only speaker either. Bringing in external experts adds credibility. People often pay more attention when the message comes from a known author or outside voice.

Internal conferences can raise the stakes even further. I’ve run whole-day events with guest speakers and colleagues sharing UX success stories. The highlight was always group brainstorming: getting people to come up with ways to improve the user experience in their own areas of the business. It builds energy and creates advocates across the organization.

The third piece of the puzzle is self-learning. Colleagues need practical guides they can turn to in the moment.

• Quick reference sheets on how to run a five-second test.
• Step-by-step instructions for creating a persona.
• Short videos showing how to use a research tool.
• Even simple checklists to make sure nothing important is missed.

These resources remove friction. They stop people from giving up when they can’t remember how to do something. And they help embed UX into everyday practice.

When you combine in-depth workshops, inspirational events, and self-learning materials, you create an ecosystem of education. Some people will dive deep, others will take small steps, but all will start to see UX as part of their work. That’s how you shift culture and make UX sustainable at scale.

If you run a freelance practice or agency, think about clients instead of colleagues. Education can be a huge differentiator. Offer training sessions as part of your projects. Share simple guides they can use once you’ve wrapped up. Run short webinars to keep them engaged between engagements. The more you teach, the more you’re seen as a trusted advisor rather than a pair of hands.

Pick one education format you’re not currently using. Maybe it’s a short reference guide, a 20-minute lunch-and-learn, or a recorded walkthrough of a tool. Create it this month. Don’t overthink it. Even something small can kick-start momentum and prove the value of making education part of your role.

In the next lesson, we’ll look at what content to include in these formats so your education efforts really stick.

Talk soon,

Paul

P.S. You can learn more about how I approach education and training here.

As I said in the last lesson, shifting responsibility for user research, testing, and prototyping onto colleagues won’t land smoothly with everyone. It’s a big ask. To make progress, you need to get ahead of objections: both the ones people voice and the ones they keep to themselves.

When I coach teams through this transition, I encourage them to start conversations by acknowledging concerns upfront. A simple line like, “I know some of you might have concerns about this approach, so let me share a few thoughts before we dive in” takes the sting out of resistance.

It is tempting to avoid focusing on the objections for fear that you will plant them in people's minds. However, in my experience, you're better off getting ahead of these things. Because once somebody expresses an objection, they tend not to back down. However, if you raise the issue first, then they can choose not to pursue it further.

Here are the most common objections you’re likely to face and a few hints on how to address them. This isn’t an exhaustive list and you will need to customize your responses to suit your audience and situation. However, they should point you in the right direction.

Lightweight UX techniques save time by catching issues early and reducing endless revisions later. A five-minute sketch or quick test can prevent weeks of rework.

UX is everyone’s responsibility. Just as safety isn’t only the job of the health and safety team, user experience can’t sit in one silo. Your team provides guidance and oversight, but the workload must be shared if projects are to succeed.

Point out that creating a good user experience is baked into every role that shapes products and services. It’s not an add-on. Instead, it’s a fundamental part of doing any job well.

Right now, many projects get little or no UX attention because your team is overstretched. Equipping colleagues to do the basics raises the overall standard. You’ll still be there to provide coaching and set guardrails.

In fact, the opposite is true. Without UX input, teams burn time in debates and rework. Suggest piloting the approach on one project, if it doesn’t help, they don’t need to continue.

User expectations have shifted dramatically. As IBM notes, “A user’s last best experience becomes their minimum expectation.” The old way can’t keep up with rising standards.

You’ll provide templates, tools, and training. The only added resource is a little attention, which quickly pays for itself in smoother delivery.

Reassure colleagues that the UX team retains overall responsibility. Their role is to contribute, not to carry the full weight. You remain the safety net.

Objections are normal. Treat them as signals of what colleagues need to feel safe trying something new. Anticipate them, respond clearly, and keep the tone supportive rather than defensive.

In the next lesson, we’ll explore the resources, support services, and educational materials that make this shift stick.

Talk soon,

Paul

In the last lesson, we explored how your own team needs to embrace a new role if you want to escape being treated as the “UX service desk.” But even if your team makes that shift, it’s not enough.

The truth is, you’ll never have the time or resources to handle every touchpoint yourself. If you want user experience to really scale, you need to equip others across the organization to share the load.

That doesn’t mean they all become professional UX designers. It does mean they start taking more ownership of UX decisions in their projects.

Let’s recap why this shift is necessary before exploring what usually trips people up, and how to make those first moves without overwhelming anyone.

It’s worth repeating myself, because this is so important: trying to do all the UX yourself is unsustainable.

There are three strong reasons to start sharing responsibility:

• Resource limits. Even the best-staffed UX teams can’t cover every product, campaign, or digital touchpoint. Democratization is the only way to scale.
• Organizational understanding. If you’re the only one making user-centered decisions, the wider company never develops a shared appreciation of UX. It stays siloed.
• Bigger priorities. There are always strategic tasks (building a design system, auditing user journeys, or shaping long-term vision) that you never get to because you’re tied up executing.

Framing democratization this way helps people understand it’s not about “pushing work off your plate.” It’s about removing bottlenecks, growing organizational maturity, and freeing you to work on what matters most.

The hardest part isn’t colleagues resisting. It’s us.

UX practitioners often sabotage democratization without realizing it. Two impulses in particular are dangerous:

• Criticizing too quickly. When someone outside the team tries to run a survey or sketch a wireframe, it won’t be perfect. But if your first instinct is to point out everything they got wrong, you kill their enthusiasm. A better approach is to acknowledge the effort and celebrate progress. Say something like, “This is a great first step. If you’d like feedback for next time, I’d be happy to help.” That way, they feel supported rather than embarrassed.
• Overcomplicating everything. We’ve spent years learning best practices and it’s tempting to throw the whole textbook at people. But colleagues don’t need a degree in cognitive psychology to clean up a page layout. They need a single, simple heuristic to get them started.

When I help colleagues design a page, I don’t lecture them about cognitive load, working memory, or progressive disclosure. Instead, I give them three simple questions to ask of every element:

1. Can I remove this?
2. If not, can I hide it?
3. If not, can I shrink it?

That’s it. Just those three steps.

Do they capture the full depth of interface design? Of course not. But they create cleaner, clearer pages almost immediately. And crucially, they give people confidence. Once they’re comfortable with the basics, you can gradually introduce more advanced principles.

The lesson here is to resist the urge to teach everything at once. UX is a huge field. Break it down into simple, usable steps that colleagues can actually apply.

Another trap is trying to democratize UX across the whole organization in one go. That never works. You’ll meet too much skepticism and spread yourself too thin.

Instead, handpick your first allies. Look for:

• People who already value UX. They’re the low-hanging fruit. Work with them and they’ll amplify your message.
• People who keep asking for your help. They’re motivated and will gladly take on more if you support them.
• People who feel the pain of poor UX. Marketing and customer support teams often fit here. They see first-hand the cost of bad experiences and are desperate for change.

Invest heavily in these groups. Coach them. Provide resources. Sit with them through their first few attempts. Make your support visible.

What happens next is important. Others will see the attention these teams are getting and want it too. When someone asks, “Why are you spending so much time with them?” you can respond, “I’d be glad to help you in the same way.” That’s how momentum builds naturally.

I’m not suggesting you walk into the next all-hands meeting and declare, “From now on, everyone is a UX practitioner.” That’s a fast way to scare people off.

Instead, quietly build up examples of collaboration that work. Share success stories. Point to teams who ran a quick test or applied a simple design heuristic and saw results.

Gradually, the narrative shifts. UX stops being “that team over there” and becomes “something we all do, with expert guidance.”

You’ll still face objections along the way; about time, skills, or risk. That’s normal. In the next lesson, we’ll explore the most common pushbacks you’ll hear and how to respond without losing momentum.

As I said in the last lesson, if your team doesn't change how it works, nobody else will either. This shift is not easy. It means asking your people to take on a very different role from what they're used to.

The transformation has four pillars:

• Providing consultative services across the organization without owning every deliverable
• Creating resources like design systems and user research that others can use
• Enforcing standards and compliance with UX best practice
• Educating colleagues so they can apply UX principles in their own projects

It's no surprise that some team members might push back with, "I didn't sign up for this." Many enjoy building interfaces and being hands-on. But this new approach solves many of the frustrations they already face.

When I talk to designers about this change, I highlight several benefits:

When your team steps back from just making screens, they get a seat at the big table. Instead of being brought in after decisions are made, they start helping shape the direction of products from day one. It's that shift from "make this pretty" to "help us figure out what to build" that most designers are secretly hoping for.

Let's be honest - the ceiling for implementers is lower than for strategists. When your team becomes internal consultants and educators, they develop leadership skills that open doors to senior roles. I've seen designers nearly double their salaries by making this transition. The market values those who can guide others more than those who just deliver pixels.

Instead of redesigning the same button for the fourteenth time, your team gets to build the systems that make those repetitive tasks unnecessary. Creating design systems, research repositories, and educational resources is deeply satisfying work. It's like building a machine that keeps producing value long after you've moved on to the next challenge.

No more spending six weeks on dropdown menus. This new approach means your team might facilitate a workshop on Monday, review designs on Tuesday, train colleagues on Wednesday, and develop standards on Thursday. The variety keeps things fresh and helps prevent burnout. I've noticed teams working this way seem genuinely happier. They're solving problems rather than just implementing solutions.

That doesn't mean the change will be painless, but it does mean there are real rewards for embracing it.

Your job is to make this shift possible. That means three key things:

The biggest hurdle for most teams is simply believing they can do it. Be there alongside them during those early workshops, training sessions, and stakeholder meetings. Show them how it's done before asking them to take the lead.

When your team shifts their role, you'll inevitably hear complaints like, "Why aren't they building this for us anymore?" or "We need them to just make the screens, not tell us what to do."

Your job is to absorb those questions yourself while your team gains confidence. Be the buffer that gives them space to grow into their new responsibilities without constantly defending themselves. This means taking some heat yourself, but that's part of leadership.

New roles demand new skills. That includes facilitation, coaching, documentation, and influence without authority. Make sure your team has access to the resources they need.

This doesn't always mean expensive courses. Peer mentoring, shadowing opportunities, and practice sessions can be just as valuable. The key is to acknowledge that you're asking them to develop a different skillset and giving them the time and support to do so.

This can't be a top-down mandate. Invite your team to help shape what this transformation looks like. Rather than imposing changes, help them think through and adopt this new role themselves.

Encourage them to imagine new possibilities by asking questions like:

• What would you want others to do differently if you had full control? This helps establish the standards they'd like to create.
• What resources or tools would you love to create for the organization? This identifies opportunities for building systems and repositories they're passionate about.
• What skills do you wish colleagues had that would make collaboration easier? This reveals educational initiatives your team might lead.
• What work would you gladly stop doing if you could? This clarifies which services they'd prefer to guide rather than execute.

This isn't just consultation. It's a way to create excitement and ownership. When people help design their own future, they're far more likely to embrace it, even when it's challenging.

Don't expect everything to change at once. Start by ringfencing one day a week for strategic work. Encourage lunch-and-learn sessions, create space for peer mentoring, and celebrate small wins.

Most of all, take your team with you. If you don't, you'll be battling resistance on two fronts: inside and outside your group.

In the next lesson, we'll look at how to democratize UX across the wider organization, turning colleagues into active participants in the process.