Is this UX skills gap holding your product back?

Products may be built in sprints, but their success is shaped by the continuous efforts of your UX team. It’s no surprise, then, that the most common reporting structure for UX teams is up through Product Management, highlighting their critical role in product development. While this structure fosters collaboration and goal alignment, it can be challenging for product leaders to diagnose which UX skills are most important to their product success and how their UX team stacks up to industry standards.

To uncover how Product and UX leaders assess their teams—and whether skill gaps are holding their products back—we went straight to the source, surveying 43 industry leaders for their insights. 

Here’s what they had to say. 

72.8% of respondents reported that there are moderate to major skill gaps in their UX teams. What are the biggest gaps? Spoiler—it’s not their design chops.

The most commonly noted skill gaps across UX teams are 1) General user research skills 2) Business acumen and 3) Working with product teams. Furthermore, if you combine “data-driven decision making” with “business acumen,” it overtakes research as THE top skill gap in UX teams.

"Our UX individuals need a better understanding on how their work delivers business outcomes." —Product Leader

I have to admit, this finding surprised me—not because I wasn’t aware that business acumen is crucial for UX, but because I didn’t expect it to be universally recognized as a core UX skill.

Traditionally, UX has been seen as the champion of user needs, focused on crafting intuitive designs and seamless experiences. But as the field evolves, so do the expectations. UXers must balance user insights with business strategy, making business acumen not just a nice-to-have, but a must-have for driving meaningful impact in product development.

At ZoCo Design, we specifically hire for the ability to seamlessly integrate business acumen into UX practices to ensure our team’s work drives the desired outcomes for the business.

What it looks like in action:

1. Targeted Discovery: Our discovery phase is designed to deeply understand both user needs and business objectives like commercialization, PLG strategies, and more. This foundational work ensures that our design solutions are aligned with strategic goals.
2. KPI Definitions: We define clear key performance indicators (KPIs) from the outset, linking our UX work to measurable business outcomes your C-Suite (or even your Board!) cares about like user acquisition or retention. This helps us track how our design decisions impact metrics such as user engagement, conversion rates, and overall business performance.
3. Cross-Functional Alignment: We foster close collaboration between UX, product management, and engineering to ensure our work not only supports business goals but is also technically feasible. 

The best part is—we teach your UX team how to do this too every step of the way. Interest piqued? Let’s chat.