Have you ever wondered about the difference between a UX vision and a UX strategy and when to use each?

As designers, our team and stakeholders rely on us to bring ideas to life. Sometimes, these ideas are tactical, conceptual, or full of unknowns. It’s not always clear how our work fits into the bigger picture or whether what we’re focusing on is the right thing. As a result, we are sometimes unsure if we should employ UX vision or strategy tactics.

This post aims to clarify the difference between UX vision and strategy, when to apply each, and how to use UX vision more regularly in your design work.

While we often view UX vision as a grand exercise involving many stakeholders, we can also use it on a smaller scale in everyday tasks. UX vision can guide the design of new features, influence the direction of our team, improve the products we work on, and help us explore new ideas.

So, what distinguishes UX vision from UX strategy, and when should we use each?

Nielsen Norman suggests that vision is an integral part of an overall UX strategy, which is a valuable perspective. However, in our day-to-day activities as designers, we often question whether the work we’re doing right now should focus on UX vision or UX strategy and the differences between the two.

Sometimes, without a comprehensive or clear UX strategy, we are left to our own devices and must make our own decisions.

We can shift this perspective and take control by asking, “How can I bring value to my team right now?” or “What does the business need?” By doing so, we might start envisioning a new idea, and if we can identify a business opportunity where this idea fits, we might be onto something significant.

UX vision vs. UX strategy

What are the high-level differences between the two?

UX vision involves imagining a product’s future and considering how it can evolve to better meet user needs and business goals. UX vision is not focused on short-term views or gains. The aim is to be inspiring and aspirational, setting an ambitious direction and creating a clear, compelling vision of the future.

For shorter time horizons, you can use opportunity or problem statements to act as an immediate way to align on what you’re doing and why. –Nielsen Norman

UX strategy outlines actionable steps and plans needed to achieve a product vision. It involves setting goals, mapping the path to reach them, illustrating the product design at various milestones, and understanding the required resources and timelines.

Focus on mapping methods like empathy mapping, journey mapping, and service blueprinting to understand the product's current state. These frameworks help us understand our users’ current experiences in a condensed artifact. –Nielsen Norman

UX vision and UX strategy play different but complementary roles in product development. UX vision looks to the future, focusing on long-term goals and possibilities. It involves imagining an ideal future state without being limited by current constraints. On the other hand, UX strategy is more immediate and practical and outlines specific, actionable steps to achieve goals based on current resources and constraints. While vision inspires and sets direction, strategy plans and executes. Vision asks, “What could be?” while strategy addresses, “How do we get there?”. Together, they ensure a product has an inspiring long-term direction and a clear, practical path to progress.

Let’s examine some scenarios to better understand the difference between UX vision and strategy in our daily environment.

UX vision scenarios

Designing new features

When designing a new, open-ended feature, the specifics of “what” the feature will be can initially be vague. Feedback plays a crucial role in this design process. Since not all feedback is equal, the team must carefully weigh the pros and cons while considering time and resource constraints. This approach helps shape the first iteration of the feature and allows designers to explore its future potential directions simultaneously.

Team and product direction

Your team might lack direction or be uncertain about what to build next. By leveraging research, your own ideas, the team’s input, or a combination of these, you can explore and design the possibilities and make concepts more tangible. This approach helps the team visualize potential solutions and provides concrete options to test and iterate on.

Overhauling long-standing products

You might be working on a long-standing product that hasn’t evolved much over the years or has seen many other products integrated with it. The product may be outdated or poorly maintained and could benefit from better integration and cohesion. The product might need an overhaul in such cases, but people and teams often don’t know where to start. Vision work can help get everyone excited about the possibilities and provide a clear direction for improvement.

Exploring ideas

Vision work is ideal for exploring ideas and complements brainstorming sessions, workshops, and design sprints. During the discovery and divergent phases of the design process, designers can envision any idea or direction when asking “what if” and keep an open mind to the possibilities. This approach works well for “blue sky” thinking.

UX vision sets an aspirational direction and explores the possibilities for a product’s future. UX strategy then translates these aspirations into actionable plans. Vision work inspires and defines what the product could become, while strategic design outlines the steps, resources, and milestones necessary to bring that vision to life. Together, they ensure that a product has a compelling future direction and a clear path to achieve it.

UX strategy scenarios

Planning, goal setting, and prioritization

UX strategy complements planning, goal setting, and prioritization. It can illustrate what the product is at various milestones along the product roadmap. With clear, actionable goals, UX strategy aligns with these objectives and helps the team visualize the product’s potential. It also aids in understanding necessary resources like time, budget, and team members. This approach fosters better conversations and effective prioritization.

Product pivoting

You might find yourself working on a product that needs a pivot due to market changes or feedback. This situation requires understanding the competitive landscape to differentiate your product and make it stand out. It involves reevaluating goals, using design to redefine the product’s direction, and creating a new strategy to adapt to the changing environment.

Risk identification

When designing a product or feature, you might identify potential risks or challenges that could negatively impact users or the business. Design can illustrate these scenarios and visualize possible outcomes. This proactive approach helps anticipate problems and develop strategies to mitigate them.

Design documentation

Design documentation is an underrated but essential aspect of UX strategy. By investing in design documentation and developing a comprehensive set of design principles, guidelines, and standards, you not only maintain consistency across products but also improve efficiency and clarity within the team. This, in turn, enables other designers to concentrate on solving significant problems.

Incorporating both UX vision and UX strategic design into your process creates a balanced approach to product development. UX vision work creates excitement and sets a clear, inspiring direction to steer the ship, while strategic design provides the practical steps to achieve those goals. By integrating the two elements, teams can innovate with confidence, align on objectives, and execute effectively, ultimately creating excellent and delightful products.