Usage Maturity Matrix: A Tool to Guide Design for our Users within Project Constraints
A usage maturity matrix is a design tool used to design for users while working within project constraints. A well-researched usage maturity matrix can also serve as a legacy tool to help us roadmap future projects.
Whether we are a user experience team of one, or many, design features and functions need to be scoped and prioritized. Project constraints often challenge our ability to meet user needs. With a usage maturity matrix as our guide, we are better able to focus our design efforts where our users and our business stakeholders need us most.
Usage maturity is defined as a user’s comfort and familiarity with, and degree of use of a product, process, or place.
In this presentation, participants will learn what a usage maturity matrix is and how to create one. We will then break out into a collaborative exercise in which participants will round out a usage maturity matrix and then use it to make design decisions. Learning to create and utilize this powerful tool can influence which features and functions we design into our present projects and can serve as a lasting guide impacting our ongoing design roadmap.
Proposed presentation structure:
– 10-15 min talk on the what, how, and whys of a usage maturity matrix
– Followed by 15-minute team exercise
– Followed by 10-15 minute share out of experience and wrap-up comments
Participants will come away with a sample usage maturity matrix and the experience of using it to make design decisions that will have ripple effects into their present projects and serve as a legacy tool for future design work.