NNGroup’s UX-maturity model — a six-stage framework for assessing an organization’s UX-related strengths and weaknesses — helps teams understand how UX is practiced, supported, and measured across four key factors: strategy, culture, process, and outcomes. While many teams use the model to uncover the full diagnostic view of UX at their organizations, that level of investment isn’t always possible.

While a formal UX-maturity assessment is ideal for fully understanding barriers and opportunities (especially when teams have the support and resources to act on it), it isn’t the only way to use the model, nor should formal assessment be the only time teams reflect on UX maturity.

UX Maturity Isn’t Just a Moment in Time

A common misconception is that UX maturity is a one-time health check — something an organization “gets graded on” and then moves on from. But UX maturity is a dynamic and evolving concept, not a fixed label. It’s more like a living system than a ladder to climb. It needs regular attention to stay healthy.

Even after reaching a higher stage, maturity can drift without ongoing observation, reflection, and adaptation. Natural organizational shifts like leadership changes, product pivots, or restructuring can weaken even well-established practices if no one is actively tending them.

The most successful teams don’t treat maturity as a score to achieve, but as something to maintain and strengthen over time. They monitor changes, reflect on what’s working, and adapt as they go. That’s why the model is just as valuable between assessments as it is during them, and why teams without the resources for a full evaluation can still use it to make meaningful progress.

What Is a Formal UX-Maturity Assessment?

A formal UX-maturity assessment is a structured evaluation that examines how an organization’s UX practice operates across the four maturity factors — strategy, culture, process, and outcomes. It typically involves a mix of methodologies including a wide-scale organizational survey, stakeholder interviews, artifact reviews, and analysis of how UX work is planned, executed, and measured. The result is a detailed profile of the current-level stage, strengths, gaps, and opportunities, along with recommendations for advancing maturity in a realistic and sustainable way.

When You Don’t Have Buy-In or Budget for a Formal Assessment

Not every team has the resources, leadership buy-in, or headspace to engage in a full assessment. This might happen when:

• Leadership sees UX as a “nice-to-have” and won’t allocate budget.
• The organization is in a high-change period (e.g., reorg, acquisition, major product shift) and priorities are elsewhere.
• The UX team is small, overloaded, and simply can’t take on a major initiative.
• There’s no clear path to acting on formal recommendations right now.

None of these situations means that the team has to wait to start maturing. In fact, using the model informally during these times can surface opportunities that lead to more buy-in later.

Instead of focusing on formal placement or progression, teams in this position can use the model as a lens for reflection. That means shifting the question from “What stage are we in?” to “What signals are we seeing, and what can we do about them right now?”

Practical Ways to Use the Model Before Formal Evaluation

Here are low-lift, high-impact ways to work with the model without a formal score.

• Look for signals in project outcomes, stakeholder feedback, product metrics, and meeting notes. Are user insights influencing decisions? Is design involved early or late? Log these observations in a team dashboard, shared document, or a recurring retrospective note, so they stay part of ongoing conversations.
• Guide team retrospectives and planning sessions. Bring the model into retrospectives, one-on-ones, or team planning meetings. Use the four maturity factors (strategy, culture, process, and outcomes) to structure discussion. For example, “Under process, where are we strongest? Under culture, what’s holding us back?” This helps surface patterns that might otherwise go unnoticed.
• Monitor change over time. Use light-touch methods like quarterly UX-health snapshots to track what’s shifting, even if informally. Focus on patterns over precise scoring. What’s improving? What’s fading? Where is momentum building or slipping? Monitor and capture shifts over time. A simple traffic-light (green/yellow/red) system can help teams see shifts at a glance without overcomplicating it.
• Create UX-maturity maps across teams or products. Capture high-level patterns to communicate insights without the need for formal stage assignment, The goal isn’t to rank teams, but to learn from each other’s strengths, spot shared challenges, and better align priorities across the organization.
• Start small. Pilot the approach with one team. That example can help demonstrate value and inspire others without needing full organizational alignment from the start.

Even without formal assessment, the model provides a shared language, a structured way to surface friction, and a map to potential next steps. This approach works as long as the team is willing to observe honestly, ask questions, and take small, consistent action based on what they learn.

If You’ve Already Done a Formal Assessment

A formal UX-maturity assessment delivers valuable insights, but it’s a moment-in-time view. Once the report is delivered, the conditions that produced those results can (and often do) change.

Reaching a higher stage once doesn’t guarantee staying there. Maturity isn’t self-sustaining. It requires the same ongoing observation, reflection, and adjustment that drove improvement in the first place. The UX maturity model is just as useful for this purpose between formal assessments as it is during them.

Practical Ways to Use the Model Between Formal Evaluations

Here are practical ways to keep using the model after an initial assessment.

• Watch for regression: What practices have slipped? What relationships or rituals feel weaker than they used to? Compare current practices to what you were doing right after the assessment. For example, if regular cross-functional design reviews were a strength, are they still happening with the same quality and engagement?
• Revisit and monitor strengths: Are the areas that were strong still strong? Or are they now on autopilot and losing effectiveness? If your research operations were a standout in the assessment, are they still feeding actionable insights into product decisions, or are reports piling up unused?
• Stay context-aware: Link maturity to what’s happening in the wider organization. If a product pivot or new leadership has shifted strategic priorities, how is that affecting your ability to influence roadmaps or secure time for research?
• Spot stagnation: Are any of the four maturity factors plateauing or becoming performative? Look for factors that appear healthy but haven’t meaningfully evolved. For example, you might have a design system in place, but is it actively maintained and adopted, or has it become more of a static artifact?
• Scan for emerging challenges: Proactively ask, “What’s new since our last assessment that could impact UX maturity?” This might be a drop in team morale due to layoffs, or a surge in demand that’s forcing rushed releases without user validation.

These types of lightweight, informal checkins using the model are not the same as a full formal evaluation but can help spot small shifts before they turn into systematic setbacks.

Avoid Overassessing

It’s possible to overcorrect and fall into a cycle of constant measurement. Rebenchmarking every quarter or revisiting the model too frequently can create pressure to “move up a stage” before real changes have had time to take hold.

When teams use a formal assessment too often:

• People feel pressured to show progress, leading to superficial fixes.
• The focus shifts to checking boxes instead of practicing better UX.
• Maturity becomes a scoreboard rather than a healthy system.

Instead, treat assessments as periodic reflection points, not ongoing audits. Before reassessing, ask: “Have we acted on the last findings?” and “Are we ready to apply new insights?” Only reassess when the team has had enough time, resources, and support to make meaningful progress.

When to Invest in Formal Evaluation

Informal reflection is powerful, but formal evaluation offers depth and clarity that’s hard to achieve otherwise. It’s worth investing in it when:

• Leadership is asking for clarity. When executives want an objective, data-backed picture of UX’s value and impact, a formal assessment gives them evidence they can trust.
• You’re preparing for major change, Mergers, reorganizations, or product pivots are moments when UX risks being overlooked or disrupted. A full assessment can highlight what’s at stake and where to protect strengths.
• You need proof to secure investment, If you’re building a business case for more UX funding, headcount, or tooling, hard numbers and a structured maturity profile can move the conversation from opinion to evidence.

In these situations, the benefits of a full evaluation go far beyond knowing your “stage”:

• A comprehensive, objective view of UX maturity across strategy, culture, process, and outcomes
• Tailored recommendations tied to organizational context, so that next steps are ambitious yet achievable
• A shared reference point to align stakeholders across disciplines
• A baseline for tracking long-term progress and impact

When the timing, leadership support, and resources align, formal evaluation can accelerate UX maturity far faster than informal methods alone.

Conclusion

Whether the next step is a light-touch reflection or a deep, formal assessment, the goal is the same: to understand where your UX practice stands and strengthen it over time.

When resources are limited, informal strategies can still spark progress by surfacing friction, reinforcing strengths, and building shared ownership. Eventually, formal assessment can take that progress further, offering depth, precision, and a baseline to measure real impact over time.

In both cases, the most important priority is to keep tending the system. Maturity will shift with organizational realities, and the teams who adapt alongside it will sustain strong UX practices over the long term.