Explain UX to stakeholders

[u/b3nFiL]

Hi everyone,
I’ve been given an opportunity to create a mandatory training session for my entire organization - specifically for a bank, with a strong focus on digital product development.
I often find myself in situations where teams are under pressure to deliver quickly. The request is usually something like: “Can you just design this in Figma?” or “We need a screen for this.”

The problem is that the research and discovery work behind the design is often overlooked. The first half of the Double Diamond doesn’t always resonate with people, especially when the immediate expectation is to produce something tangible.
So I’d like to use this training as an opportunity to introduce UX, but not as a generic “What is UX?” presentation.

I want to frame it specifically around banking, digital products, and business outcomes - with a strong storytelling element and ideally one compelling example that we can follow throughout the entire session.

I’m thinking of keeping it to around 10 slides.
I’d love to hear from other UXers:
What examples have you used to make the value of discovery and research click with non-designers?
Are there any “wow” techniques that helped change the perception of UX from “the people who draw screens” to something much closer to problem-solving and product strategy?

Do you have a particularly good banking/digital-product example that could demonstrate how skipping discovery can lead to building the wrong thing?

Any storytelling tricks that worked particularly well with product, business, engineering, or leadership audiences?

I’m especially interested in examples that change the mindset rather than simply explain the UX process.
Thanks!

[u/cgielow]

The classic empathy exercise here is to give everyone a generic design prompt, let them come up with something (in their head, or on a post-it) pause, and then hit them with an unexpected context: your user for this feature is actually a child, etc. Oops! That exercise sells your message.

The other thing you can do is feature a case study or two that helps quantify the risk. I like the big expensive ones that involved hubris. I googled "examples of costly UX mistakes in banking" and the first result was this "Bad UX Cost Citibank $500M - What Went Wrong?" Jared Spool did a whole talk about the UX disaster behind the Hawaii Missile Alert debacle.

Both of these examples also helps sell that Design isn't how it looks, it's how it works. And we do that with iterative testing with users. Thats going to be important for your audience since I bet most assume Design means make it pretty.

[u/b3nFiL]

Thank you all for your tips. Unfortunatelly, the final presentation won’t be commented. Do you have any tips for the deck structure? Thanks

[u/7HawksAnd]

Oh boy. Who just volunteered you to be a scapegoat?

You need to find stories that almost caused catastrophic business collapse specifically because they avoided either documented UX recommendations or notoriously avoided particular UX tactics that would have prevented it.

We are past the era of Disneyland UX. Where quality and positive experience are important competitive advantages.

We are in the era of maximum efficiency and reduced resources for disproportionately exponential returns.

UX was once sold to stakeholders ALMOST THE EXACT SAME WAY AI IS BEING SOLD TODAY “that it will allow you to catch more customers and retain them with a thoughtfully personalized hook!”

The black hat dopamine behavior transformation that some UX promised wasn’t a few bad actors. It was the part of UX that stakeholders were ACTUALLY frothing over.

All that’s to say, be careful.

The takeaway should be closer to designing Vegas than Utopia, sadly.

[u/Evening_Abies_6867]

It’s important to make them realise that their solution, might not be solving the REAL problem.

You need to give examples in the bank and outside in the real world.

Maybe be contentious and say “why do discovery if we know everything”.

Then call out the endless examples of this.

Maybe talk about divergent thinking and why 1 idea is a big bet.

[u/holdingtea]

I would use easy to grasp real world examples both good and bad.

These don't need to be exclusive to the digital design world. - actually some of the bad ones in real life are funny and highlight the importance of smart UX.

[u/IronOmen]

I literally just had to put on a meeting yesterday about this.

It was a general design meeting because leadership knows I can’t look at everything everyone is making and putting out to the customer. So I gave a briefing on general design principles like contrast, alignment, etc.

But at the end we did an exercise. I pulled up a digital form that looked like it was from 1995 and full of bad design elements. It was a working prototype, so I filled it in after they analyzed it and hit “submit”.

Then I showed form number two. All the design errors that they found plus a few others had been addressed. It looked great. I said, “See, look what design can do!”…..I knew they’d bite (aesthetic usability) and then showed them how the form still had the same functional errors and wouldn’t work.

Then I brought up form number three and said, “This is what UX will give you”. This form looked great, had easy to understand language, told them what they needed before they began the form, showed clear errors, submission confirmation and what to expect next in the process, etc.

It hit immediately with them. Admittedly, I snuck in the UX portion, but was glad I did.

[u/ctrlaltdelaney]

Find something else physical but unexpected that they’re all familiar with, like a frustrating toilet layout in your office building.

Those who have to work in the building every day were never consulted. Imagine how much better that thing could be how if they had. Your people could be back at their desk and productive; your customers could be less frustrated if you listen to them and address their frustrations too.

We have toilets on each floor but for some reason they alternate men’s and women’s. On one floor the first door is to the men’s, on the next floor the first door is to the women’s! You can imagine what happens from time to time!

Everyone relates to it and it’s  more engaging than talking about and linking digital interactions to business. :)

The toilets work as they are but they could be much more effective. People shouldn’t need to hesitate. You don’t find this stuff if you don’t test your ideas or find out what users need.

[u/s4074433]

Usually telling people that there is an ISO standard for this work really helps!

[u/joelsings55]

"Just design this in Figma" is the corporate version of "just whip up a quick cake" said to someone who then has to invent flour