These challenges all share a common theme of adaptation and evolution in the field of user experience. As we address these challenges, we must look for solutions that propel the field forward to new levels of excellence. Addressing user experience knowledge management is key to overcoming those challenges.

Here is a story that better explains the connection between these challenges and how knowledge management can help.

• Is there an intranet I can use to get up to speed on the company?
• What does my tool stack look like?
• What design changes have been implemented over the last year?
• How much of the UI library is connected to the design system?
• Who is on my team, and what are their skill sets?
• Are there any communities I can join to start building my network?
• I was hired as a designer, but I need to partner with non-UX team members to run user testing; is there a standard usability testing playbook?

As a designer, you need access to a mix of organizational, team, and role-specific information, some of which should be well-documented, and some can only come from finding the right people to talk to and learn from.

The information this Senior UI Designer seeks are all examples of organizational knowledge that will enable them to address the challenges of straddling multiple skills and supporting and collaborating with non-UXers to achieve positive and measurable outcomes. They must be able to do all of this while learning the organization’s culture and how to communicate and collaborate successfully. Better knowledge management is not the only solution. But if we are looking for significant actions that can make a meaningful impact on alleviating these pain points, this is an area where we can and should do more.

This example focuses on a designer transitioning into a new company and position. However, most of their information needs are not unique to starting a new job, and they will continue to struggle with these challenges and the ability to address these needs throughout their career until there is a solution.

To help our profession weather the current storm and continue to enable excellence, we need to build a more comprehensive understanding of UX knowledge management and fully embrace the responsibility of knowledge stewardship.

This responsibility starts with you if you have a DesignOps title or responsibilities. If your organization still needs DesignOps, these responsibilities lie with whoever is in charge of improving the efficiency and effectiveness of researchers and designers.

To help us understand where to get started, we need to define knowledge and clarify what types of knowledge need to be managed, as different types of knowledge require different processes, tools, and systems to support them.

According to the Oxford Languages Dictionary, Knowledge is

“Facts, information, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject.”

So, knowledge isn’t just about the facts and information you know; it’s about the skills you have and the understanding you build.

There are multiple types of knowledge. We focus on three types: explicit, implicit, and tacit knowledge.

Standard organization-wide repositories include learning management systems, document and content management systems, corporate intranets, and knowledge bases. In addition, repositories are typically owned or used by specific parts of the organization. For example, marketing may manage a web content management system as the backbone of the corporate website.

Remember that UXers are not the only ones who need access to UX knowledge. Other individuals and groups also participating in UX processes need access to the same information. There needs to be UX knowledge packaged up for everyone from the C-Suite down to the stakeholders who collaborate with designers and researchers or make decisions about their work.

Read our design planning and management whitepaper that outlines various types of design information organizations struggle to continuously integrate for delivering research and design at scale.  Our model allows digital product teams to better organize and integrate research and design into continuous integration product lifecycles.

Introducing the Design Management (DM) Kick-start, an information management framework to scale your design operations.  Check out how we lower context switching by consolidating, organizing, and managing design data for planning, management, and execution of design.