Working with C-level Executives Jeremy฀Ashley฀ | ฀ Oracle฀ | ฀ jeremy.ashley@oracle.com SPECIAL SECTION UX MANAGEMENT AS USER EXPERIENCE professionals in management roles, we inevitably need to work with the top executives within our companies. User experience professionals have the skills and tools to contribute a unique and valuable perspective about a company’s customers and users, as well as the ability to translate this into meaningful products. This is of high strategic value to a company, and it is essential that all UX professionals know how to effectively com- municate with top-level executive manage- ment. This is essential for the designated UX leader in a management role. There is no standard way that user experience teams are positioned across the software industry. Some companies have a user experience executive (VP level) who reports directly to the CEO or another senior executive, and user experience is an established part of the corporate process and culture. Others may have a team that is embedded within another function such as development or product management and therefore has its efforts combined with the general delivery of that organization. In the case of a startup or small company, the CEO could be in the next cube, popping his head over the wall every hour to check on progress and directly comment on screen design. In spite of these differences, some general principles apply. A continuing challenge for those of us in the software industry is that design (and its associated activities) is just now fully coming of age. Design, usability testing, and wants and needs analysis have been an accepted and central part of the corporate culture in many traditional and mature product indus- tries, such as BMW, Philips, and Sony, for a long time. Over the past five years, more software companies have increased their investment in their user experience orga- nizations. As software is increasingly com- moditized, the days when technology and features were sufficient to sell a product are gone. How a user interface adds to a user’s total experience with a product, both in :/ 29 interactions / may + june 2007