Driving forward the user-centricity of MoneySupermarket Group

Intro

The Product and UX function at MoneySupermarket Group has matured considerably in the time I’ve been with the organisation. Through investment in people, process and research capabilities over the years it found itself in a strong position to drive forward its maturity to make design truly infused and put the user the heart of its product strategy.

Even better if

With solid foundations in place, I worked on a UX strategy alongside other design leaders with the ambition to make the organisation design-infused.

As part of the strategy, I led a piece to drive forward the design maturity of the organisation. The idea was to develop a survey to benchmark the maturity which would highlight the proactive steps the team could take to drive it forward year-on-year.

To develop the tool, I sourced inspiration from industry leaders that had developed their own variations over the years. Three notable examples were the McKinsey Design Index, The New Design Frontier by Invision and Clearleft’s Design Effectiveness survey.

I noted elements of each I felt would be fit for purpose for the Group and distilled them down into four categories which aligned with the pillars of our UX strategy:

• People
• Experience
• Process
• Customer

I iterated the survey working closely with design and product leadership until we were satisfied it would capture the views we were after to drive forward the maturity.

Benchmarking the design maturity

The survey was first launched in 2019 and has been run year-on-year since. The survey is sent out across the organisation to teams that collaborate end-to-end with UX including product management, engineering, marketing, data, commercial and editorial.

In its first year, off the back of the survey, key areas of focus to improve upon were identified which became team OKRs that individuals within the UX and design function would contribute to. Key areas that have been looked at since its inception are:

• UX and design career progression
• UX metrics
• Mapping the experience end-to-end
• Visibility of the user
• Customer exposure at all levels

Steps towards design-infused

From the baseline survey an OKR was set to improve the design maturity by ten per cent, this was exceeded in year one. The same objective is set for year two and if achieved the organisation will find itself entering the top tier of design-mature organisations.