Early Product Design in Startups: Towards a UX Strategy

Abstract

Startups often begin with minimal product versions to test and validate their product ideas as early as possible. Therefore, the first versions of<br/>the product need to be able to communicate the product idea to users in order to receive meaningful feedback. However, if user experience (UX) of the product<br/>is poor, users tend to concentrate on the disturbing user interface instead of the<br/>actual product idea. Thus, we suggest that startups should have a UX strategy<br/>from the beginning in order to understand their goals related to UX at different<br/>stages of product maturity. To this end, we conducted an interview study with<br/>eight Finland-based startups and 13 participants. Our results contribute towards understanding both needs for early UX design in startups as well as the<br/>restrictions for UX work that the scarce resources of startups induce. This work<br/>contributes to creating a UX strategy model for startups.