Enterprise UX Process

Enterprise UX Process Skill

Source: Operationalizes the Synechron enterprise-UX extraction (Synechron, 2018; derived from The Design Ladder + Natalie Hanson's UX Maturity Model). The underlying book-extractions/* source files live in the originating engineering catalog, not this design engine.

Use when

• Scoping or executing a premium-priced enterprise UX engagement (financial services, insurance, healthcare, regulated industries, large internal apps, B2B SaaS)
• Auditing whether an enterprise project is positioned correctly on the maturity scale
• Defending a premium-pricing claim against an internal or external review
• Bridging strategy (Levy) and tactical UX work (Branson, Deacon, Fekeshazi) into a single enterprise-grade process

Do not use when

• The work is consumer-grade (single-interaction, low-stakes) — use simpler skills
• The artifact is a prototype or experiment, not a production deliverable
• The project is explicitly priced as standard tier and the team has agreed not to pursue premium positioning

Required inputs

Before invoking this skill, the following must be available or generated:

• Problem definition statement (what is the need; why now; for whom)
• Stakeholder list with roles (funder, owner, executor)
• Business objective (what success means in measurable terms)
• Success criteria (signed off by stakeholders)
• Target maturity level: 3 (UX Design) for standard premium, 4 (Experience Design) for top-tier

Workflow

The process maps directly to Synechron's Activity-by-Level matrix. All 9 phases must produce documented evidence at Level 3+; the additional Level 4 activities are noted inline.

Phase 1 — Problem Definition + Business Objective

• UX team meets with business stakeholders and product owners
• Answer: What is the need? Why now? For whom? How does this make life easier for the end user?
• Document vision, hopes, aspirations, and fears from the business perspective
• Output: signed problem-definition document

Phase 2 — Stakeholder Discussions / Interviews

• Identify funders, owners, executors
• Conduct focused-group discussions OR individual interviews
• Capture: roles, expectations from UX, problem perception, end-user identification, collective goals, organizational/competitive/scope context
• Output: stakeholder-interview transcripts + summary brief

Phase 3 — Success Criteria sign-off

• Checklist of measures the deliverable must hit to be successful
• Documented and agreed by all stakeholders
• Treat as non-negotiable acceptance criteria
• Output: signed success-criteria document

Phase 4 — User Research (qualitative + quantitative)

• Methodologies: interviews, contextual inquiries, eye tracking, surveys, A/B testing, web analytics, field studies
• Quantitative: how many, what %
• Qualitative: why behaviors occur, what users notice
• Output: user-research report with both data types

Phase 5 — Competitor Analysis

• Use Levy's 19-column competitive matrix (the Levy UX-strategy extraction; the source file lives in the originating engineering catalog, not this design engine)
• Minimum: 5 direct + 3 indirect competitors
• Output: filled matrix + 1-page distilled brief

Phase 6 — Personas + User Journeys + Information Architecture

• Personas: apply Branson's discipline (Essential Persona declared, Mechanics floor — name, demographics, goals, environment, pain points, stress points)
• User Journeys: chronological touch-point sequence per primary persona
• Information Architecture: organization, structure, labelling of all content; navigation strategy/flow; site map; content buckets; intuitive labels
• Level 4 also requires: Experience Maps
• Output: persona deck + journey deck + IA deck

Phase 7 — Wireframes + Clickable Prototype + Visual Design Mockups

• Wireframes: low-fidelity (paper) + high-fidelity (no color, focus on flow)
• Clickable prototype: stitched screens behaving like the real product per crucial user scenarios
• Visual design mockups: full-scale static representation with colors, branding, graphics
• Level 4 also requires: Mood Boards
• Output: wireframe pack + interactive prototype + mockup set

Phase 8 — Heuristic Evaluation

• UX expert reviews against Nielsen-style heuristics:
  1. Visibility of System Status
  2. Match Between System and the Real World
  3. User Control and Freedom
  4. Consistency and Standards
  5. Error Prevention & Error Handling
  6. Recognizing Rather than Recall
  7. Flexibility and Efficiency of Use
  8. Aesthetic and Minimal Design
  9. Help and Documentation
• Plus Branson's 4-stage cognitive affordance audit per primary CTA (Presence → Visibility → Recognizability → Intelligibility)
• Output: heuristic evaluation report listing flaws + improvements

Phase 9 — Usability Testing + ADA / Section 508 verification (Level 4 + all-levels accessibility)

• Usability testing: moderated in-person, moderated remote, OR unmoderated remote
• Test scenarios derived from actual use cases and task flows
• ADA / Section 508 / WCAG 2.1 AA verification — required at ALL maturity levels
• Output: usability test report + accessibility audit

Decision Rules

Capability Contract

• Must read engagement, research, regulatory, and delivery evidence and preserve provenance; audit/planning is read-only unless execution is authorised.
• May create in-scope artefacts and facilitate approved research. Do not contact participants, spend budget, sign for stakeholders, publish sensitive evidence, or claim certification without separate authority.

Degraded Mode

• If sponsor, decision owner, maturity target, success criteria, or evidence provenance is missing, stop maturity/release claims and issue a blocker register.
• If research or testing cannot run, produce only the completed phases and mark downstream claims pending; never fabricate transcripts, scores, accessibility results, or sign-off.
• Recover a failed phase by assigning the evidence owner, completing the smallest missing activity, and rerunning all dependent gates.

Quality Standards

• Each phase has an owner, source evidence, acceptance criterion, decision, and dependency trace; activity volume alone does not prove maturity.
• Accessibility claims use the current agreed standard and test evidence; legal compliance or certification is never inferred from a checklist.
• The launch declaration is blocked by any unresolved critical outcome, consent/privacy breach, or missing accountable sign-off.

Anti-Patterns

• Declaring Level 4 because the proposal lists Level 4 activities. Correction: require completed, reviewed evidence for each activity.
• Treating stakeholder opinion as user research. Correction: label its source and run an appropriate user method.
• Producing personas from imagination. Correction: trace attributes to research or label a proto-persona.
• Running accessibility as a final cosmetic check. Correction: set criteria early and test throughout.
• Using a five-outcome score to conceal one critical failure. Correction: preserve the blocking rule and evidence each outcome.
• Claiming ADA, Section 508, or WCAG certification from self-review. Correction: state scope, method, result, and limits.

Outputs

A complete enterprise-ux-process engagement produces:

1. Maturity-level declaration — single sentence at the top of the engagement summary: "This engagement operates at UX Maturity Level [3 / 4], per Synechron's 5-level model."
2. Activity-by-level evidence pack — see references/maturity-checklist.md for the matrix and required evidence per activity
3. Heuristic evaluation report — Phase 8 output
4. Five-outcomes pre-launch declaration — Yes/No with evidence per outcome:
   • Useful (persona-validated)
   • Easy to use (first-task success without coaching)
   • Efficient (task time benchmarked)
   • Pleasing (≥ 4/5 first-impression rating)
   • Accessible (ADA/Section 508/WCAG 2.1 AA)
   • Rule: 4-of-5 disqualifies premium pricing. One No = no launch.

Examples

• examples/ux-engagement-worked.md — a full worked enterprise UX engagement for a sample client (Meridian Trust Bank treasury portal): scored UX maturity assessment, 14-week engagement plan with phases/deliverables/gates, value/ROI framing, and the completed 5-outcomes pre-launch declaration.

References

Load only the directly relevant process references for the current enterprise phase and decision.

Design doctrine (always consult)

• doctrine/design-doctrine.md — the anti-slop charter; Phase 7 visual design and the "Pleasing" pre-launch outcome must satisfy it.
• doctrine/references/ai-slop-taxonomy.md — the product/interface slop tells the heuristic evaluation (Phase 8) and Aesthetic-and-Minimal heuristic should screen for.

Canonical extractions (source-of-truth — external to this design engine)

The Synechron, Levy, Branson, Deacon, and Fekeshazi book-extractions/* files that this process operationalizes live in the originating engineering catalog, not this engine. They frame strategy (Levy Four Tenets, upstream of Phase 1), persona discipline and the 4-stage affordance audit (Branson, in Phases 6 and 8), the 3 levels of UX scope (Deacon, declared in Phase 1), and PM collaboration rules (Fekeshazi).

Operational skills in other engines

• website-skills/skills/quality-gates/design-quality-score/SKILL.md — Category 8 (UX Maturity) scores the same artifacts independently
• website-skills/skills/orchestration/premium-ui-ux-design/references/enterprise-five-outcomes.md — same 5-outcomes gate applied to website templates
• srs-skills/01-strategic-vision/07-premium-product-positioning/SKILL.md — premium-positioning gate using the same 5+5 model
• srs-skills/03-design-documentation/05-ux-specification/SKILL.md — UX spec produced under this process

Quick-use checklist

• references/maturity-checklist.md — standalone activity-by-level checklist for use in project workspaces