Bridging Gap

I have had the misfortune of dealing with overzealous yet inexperienced UX teams that insist on being in the driver's seat in every situation where a customer is involved. The tension between UX-led discovery and product managers’ broader strategic goals becomes an unsurmountable challenge where roles aren’t clearly aligned (which is an astonishingly common problem). When UX teams drive discovery without balancing user needs with core functionality, business viability, or technical feasibility, products often fail to address critical customer jobs-to-be-done (JTBD), leading to poor adoption. 

Misalignment unfolds at a terrific clip and so collaboration is key. But that is easier said than done. There are UX leaders who believe only their teams are qualified to run discovery with customers, others can participate but that's about all. I have had entire engineering teams storm out of such misguided sessions with customers who had no idea why they had been invited, never to return. Trust is irreparably broken and the front end engineer will proceed to ignore any and all ideas from UX as impractical and not engineering ready. A 2025 study found that 70% of product failures stem from poor UX and misaligned functionality. Example: A fintech app with sleek UI but missing bulk payment processing (a core JTBD for business users) will fail despite its design.

I love this author's perspective on transforming UX research from raw data and isolated findings into strategic insights that explain why issues occur and what should be done to improve outcomes. Applying this approach can help resolve the problem where UX teams focus myopically on experience without addressing core functionality and JTBD. By fostering insight-driven collaboration and linking UX work directly to business impact, companies can build products that are both usable and indispensable, improving adoption and overall success.