The role of UX: 2020 benchmark study report and analysis

UXmatters and the UX research consultancy User Fountain recently teamed up to survey UX professionals around the world on the role of User Experience within their organization. The Role of UX: 2020 Benchmark Study explores UX roles, tools, methods, and organizational structures, as well as organizations’ various levels of UX maturity. Here are some interesting data:

For most UX teams, Web projects dominated their project portfolio in 2020, with 72% working on Web applications, 54% on Web sites, and 19% on intranets. Mobile-app projects were the focus of 57% of UX teams.

The great majority of respondents (71%) worked in house in 2020, while the remaining 29% of respondents worked as consultants (12%), at an agency (10%), or did freelance work (5%). Only 33% of respondents’ in-house UX teams worked with external agencies in 2020. In most cases, their use of external agencies for UX projects either remained unchanged (42%) or declined (33%), in comparison to previous years. When companies did work with agencies, they relied on them primarily for UX research (33%), visual interface–design (33%), and usability-testing (30%) projects—as has been typical in the past.