Subversive UX Strategies

Let’s be honest: We already know what’s going to get built. We already know what’s going to get funded. We already know what the leadership slide will say before we even open the research plan. So what do we do? We run just enough usability tests to back a decision that’s already been made. We cherry-pick quotes that support the roadmap. We sanitize reports so they don’t ruffle feathers. Let’s call it what it is: >>>Corporate Validation Theater >>>The illusion of user empathy >>>Masquerading as evidence-based design Let’s stop faking it—and fix it. Here’s how we move from performative research to powerful research: 1. Stop reporting averages. Start showing tensions. Stakeholders glaze over consensus. What changes minds? The unexpected contradictions in user behavior. 2. Treat research as strategy, not support. If research is only being used to confirm ideas, it’s already too late. Bring it in before ideation, not after. 3. Design research that invites hard truths. Create protocols that are impossible to game: >Blind studies >Task-based observation >Mixed methods >Stakeholders respect rigor. Give it to them. 4. Present insights live, not in decks. The most powerful tool? Watching a real user struggle. No PDF can compete with empathy in real time. 5. Document what you learned and what you changed. If nothing changed after the research—did it matter at all? #uxresearch #uxdesign #designstrategy

Met Alistair Croll while he visited SF for his "Just Evil Enough" book launch, a few months after hearing him on Lenny Rachitsky's podcast. When I mentioned our data platform Recce, he lit up at the connection to "reconnaissance" - the concept central to his subversive marketing approach. As the former co-chair of O'Reilly's Strata conference, he immediately got what we're building. The core of Alistair's book is finding "zero-day exploits" in marketing (or product in a sense) - those unexpected approaches that give you an advantage before competitors catch on. Think Netflix using postal mail for DVDs before streaming was viable. What's the equivalent for data teams? Most data engineers obsess over architecture and pipelines while missing opportunities to rethink how their work creates competitive advantage. We need to do proper reconnaissance - scanning for gaps, mapping organizational decision points, and finding unconventional approaches to data problems. Alistair doesn't see marketing as separate from product - it's woven into the product itself. This perspective transforms how data teams should think too. Our dashboards, pipelines and models aren't just technical services but products that need user experience design, onboarding flows, and champions. At the end of the book he touched on organizational change with similar subversive mindset. At Pfizer, a new service gained adoption by starting small and getting key stakeholders hooked before formal rollout so management has no reason to object. Data teams can use this same approach instead of massive top-down initiatives. Start with a small group solving real problems in unexpected ways and let success spread organically. Your "just evil enough" data strategy isn't about being actually evil. It's about finding that small, unconventional advantage nobody else has spotted - combining overlooked datasets, focusing on user experience when others just deliver raw data, or building tools that make internal teams surprisingly productive. What's your data team's zero-day exploit? #JustEvilEnough #DataStrategy

9️⃣ ideas for building UX influence ↴ 1. Expose invisible losses. ↳ Quantify how bad UX silently erodes time, trust, and revenue, and tie it to decision-makers’ KPIs. 2. Create an "almost failure" archive. ↳ Document close calls where UX saved the day, then share it in critical conversations. 3. Position UX as a survival strategy. ↳ Frame UX as the antidote to user churn and competitive irrelevance. 4. Redesign a competitor’s product. ↳ Show how they’re winning users you could’ve kept with better UX. 5. Pitch UX as a "shortcut to trust". ↳ Illustrate how seamless design reduces skepticism faster than any sales pitch. 6. Flip success metrics into pain points. ↳ Turn “our app is sticky” into “users are stuck navigating it.” 7. Make user friction visceral. ↳ Host live sessions where stakeholders are forced to complete frustrating user tasks themselves. 8. Show the ripple effect.  ↳ Map how a small UX improvement impacts efficiency across the entire org. 9. Ask “what would a user fire us for?” ↳ Surface the unspoken dealbreakers hiding in your product experience. ↓ ↓ ↓ ✍️ If you like this, you’d probably like my newsletter where I share with 6,500+ UX pros 2 short, tactical reads a week on growing your impact, influence and UX career. You’re welcome to join us (link in the comments)