Companies often come to UX teams with a straightforward request: design an application to solve a specific operational problem. But what happens when the issue isn’t the app but the process itself? Imagine building a sleek dashboard for a team, only to discover during UX workshops or user interviews that the underlying process is riddled with inefficiencies — manual tasks, error-prone workflows, or redundancies.
This is where UX shines: it reveals not just what users need but also where systems and processes fall short. Or organizations fall into the mindset that “better is the enemy of good,” which is often a trap.
The Price of Turning a Blind Eye
The phrase “we’ve always done it this way” often signals an organization stuck in a conservative culture. Superficial fixes may seem easier, but they rarely address the root causes of inefficiency. Without a holistic examination of workflows, companies risk implementing tools that treat symptoms instead of solving the real problems.
This approach also perpetuates technical debt — inefficiencies embedded in systems and processes that grow more expensive over time. When companies fail to identify underlying issues, they implement solutions that seem logical but don’t address the actual needs.
The result? New software that underdelivers, missing functionality that requires costly patches, and workflows that remain broken.
The numbers are staggering. Developers spend up to a third of their time paying off technical debt, and in the U.S. alone, its cost exceeds $2.4 trillion annually, according to CISQ estimates.
As UX professionals, we bring a unique perspective to these challenges. By engaging stakeholders, mapping processes, and challenging entrenched habits, we can uncover inefficiencies that organizations may not even realize exist. This holistic approach ensures that the final solution — whether a new app, optimized software, or redesigned process — truly aligns with business goals and user needs, addressing root problems rather than merely masking them.
Routine: the Killer of Innovation and Commitment
Routine and technical debt go hand in hand: both stem from avoiding the deeper issues that hold back progress. The “we’ve always done it this way” is an innovation killer. Imagine a new employee joining a company, full of energy and ideas. At first, they’re eager to make a difference — creative, collaborative, and motivated. Over time, though, they settle into the routine. If the organization offers challenges or incentives, their engagement might last. But what if the culture itself resists change?
Processes often stick around not because they’re effective but because they’re familiar. Improving them feels risky — what if it costs more, disrupts workflows, or leads to mistakes? So the organization sticks with what’s safe, even if it slows progress.
Routine may seem harmless, but it can block growth. Without questioning old ways, businesses end up with band-aid solutions instead of actual ones, leaving real opportunities for improvement behind.
Bottlenecks of Cooperation
While process bottlenecks can stem from system inefficiencies, more often, they arise from human and organizational factors. An overly complicated workflow, full of manual tasks, is often a sign of missed opportunities for automation and IT integration. In many cases, the problem lies not in poor planning but in outdated workflows that no longer align with the current needs of customers, or the skills and resources available within the company.
But the root cause often goes deeper — it’s about how people interact with and within these processes. How they navigate these structures can either empower or hinder their performance. This is where relational and communication issues come into play, especially in terms of daily work experience. A well-designed process doesn’t just guide the tasks; it fosters better cooperation between people, teams, and departments. Without this, the following bottlenecks can occur:
- Decision-making delays
Too many approval layers or redundant checkpoints can slow decision-making and execution. A decision that requires approval from multiple levels of management can unnecessarily delay important actions or projects, stalling progress across the organization. - Ineffective communication
Poor communication channels or a lack of coordination between departments (e.g., sales, marketing, finance) can create confusion, misunderstandings, and delays. Without a seamless flow of information, departments may duplicate efforts or become isolated silos, hindering collaboration. - Unclear expectations
When employees lack clarity on their roles or how their performance is measured, prioritizing tasks becomes difficult. Uncertainty about expectations can lead to a lack of accountability, where employees hesitate to take responsibility due to unclear directives from their superiors.
Effective processes play a critical role in resolving these issues. They eliminate unnecessary delays, ensure communication flows freely across departments, and make expectations clear to everyone involved. This not only boosts efficiency but also fosters a culture of collaboration and accountability.
What Makes Humans Less Effective
A process is not just a series of activities leading to a goal; it’s an environment shaped by human intellectual, physical, and mental predispositions. This brings us into the realm of management psychology — exploring how behavior and predispositions impact the effectiveness and quality of a process. Grounded in well-established psychological theories like Maslow’s pyramid of needs and Herzberg’s two-factor theory, this area of study offers insights into how motivation and human needs affect organizational performance.
Today’s organizations face many problems that prevent them from operating effectively. Looking through the lens of a common denominator, we can identify three key areas that impact performance. Let’s explore how good UX practices can help address these issues.
1) Boosting Engagement
Employee engagement is a critical factor in organizational performance. Well-designed internal processes and solutions with strong UX can significantly boost engagement by providing employees with the support they need to actively pursue the organization’s goals. When employees are empowered by intuitive processes and tools, they are more likely to take initiative, show creativity, and strive for higher efficiency in their work.
An engaged workforce is also one that tackles challenges more eagerly, works faster, and with greater efficiency, while reducing the need for constant supervision. Good UX and streamlined processes reduce the risk of errors, shorten task completion times, and improve work quality, ultimately leading to better overall organizational outcomes.
2) Embracing Change Through Thoughtful UX
Change is inevitable in any organization’s growth. Resistance to change often stems from fear of the unknown or failure. Employees may feel uncertain about the impact of change and resist adopting new processes or behaviors. This resistance can manifest subtly, such as through disengagement, reluctance to participate in training, or spreading negativity, or more overtly when employees outright refuse to comply with new directives.
A well-structured approach to change management can reduce resistance. By actively involving employees, gathering their feedback, and clearly showing how changes will simplify their work, organizations can ease the transition. Thoughtful process changes and clear communication demonstrate that new processes and tools are designed to support employees, not hinder them. This approach fosters a culture of adaptability, where employees are more likely to embrace change and participate in its implementation.
3) Avoiding Burnout
Employee burnout is more than just an individual health issue — it is a critical business challenge that can ripple through every aspect of an organization. In the United States alone, the healthcare cost of employee burnout is estimated to be between $125 billion and $190 billion annually – according to Harvard Business Review.
Burnout is becoming all too common in today’s workplaces, often driven by constant stress, overwhelming workloads, and a lack of support. It leaves employees feeling drained, disconnected, and less capable, which can have a serious impact on both personal well-being and the organization as a whole.
When burnout sets in, focus and productivity take a hit. Tasks that once seemed easy become burdensome, leading to mistakes and missed details. This puts extra pressure on the rest of the team to cover the gaps. While great UX won’t solve all burnout issues, smoother processes, clearer expectations, and user-friendly tools can help reduce frustration and make work feel more manageable — ultimately easing stress and improving efficiency.
UX Tools—Improving Business Processes
Take a typical digital transformation project: a document workflow and approval application. Before the change (meaning: designing, developing and implementing the app), workflows spanned multiple departments, involved numerous approval points, and required frequent iterations. Delays, errors, and frustration were common. Documents passed from hand to hand, and tracking their status became a challenge, leading to misunderstandings and inefficiency.
In this case, a sleek interface alone wouldn’t solve the problem. True value lies in improving the process with UX tools.
Using journey mapping and flow design, the team maps out the entire document approval process, identifies pain points, and gains insights into where delays and errors occur. This tool highlights the manual nature of many tasks, such as document hand-offs and status tracking, and reveals inefficiencies that frustrate employees.
User interviews and shadowing sessions provide further insights, making it clear how much manual work is involved. Interviews uncover the root causes of process inefficiencies and highlight the emotional aspect of the user experience—how the lack of clarity and constant back-and-forth leaves employees feeling disengaged. Shadowing let’s UX designers see the users during their daily work and identify inefficiencies the users themselves wouldn’t be able to name, because they’re too deeply rooted in certain ways of working.
Finally, ideation workshops bring together diverse perspectives across the organization, generating ideas and solutions to improve the process. These workshops align teams, ensure the solution meets the needs of both employees and the business, and foster a sense of ownership and engagement in the redesign.
Ultimate Aim: Business Goals
Improving a company’s processes goes beyond simply implementing a new IT solution. To truly enhance efficiency, it’s crucial to first understand the overall workflow and diagnose what’s not working. Is the issue with the process itself, or are there psychological and emotional factors at play?
When traditional methods of improving internal processes fall short, it’s worth considering the user’s perspective. The root cause of the problem may lie in the gap between their daily experience and the intended goals. Addressing this mismatch can lead to solutions that not only streamline processes but also reduce costs, optimize workflows, and ultimately boost productivity.
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