I'm going to be speaking from the perspective of management at the CxO/VP/Director level here, and please keep in mind that "explanation is not endorsement" (in other words, I'm describing views and opinions that are not necessarily my own).

Fundamentally, for most projects and most companies, UI/UX is not viewed as "the juice is worth the squeeze".

Let's say we're working on a project where we can have the UI/UX person do a basic, "good enough" job, or even just omit that step and have the BA sketch something on a piece of paper and take a cell phone picture of it and add it to the Jira card... or even just tell the dev "these are the fields I want on the screen" and that's it. Or we could have a UI/UX person do the thing with the personas and talking to the end users and the whole nine yards.

Let's say that the UI/UX person can increase the productivity of users by 100% and totally delight them with the amazing functionality.

That sounds awesome, right?

And then we consider that the person is costing us, say, $150k/year fully encumbered.

Is that 100% productivity increase going to save us (or increase revenues) by $150k/year? Are we going to retain or gain enough paying users to justify the spend? Etc. etc. etc.

In virtually all cases, the answer is a resounding "no".

Does it make the application "better" to have the UI/UX team really do the full supreme pizza on the project? WITHOUT A DOUBT. Does it deliver ROI? ABSOLUTELY NOT. So why do it?

Compounding this problem is the simple fact that so many projects (I'll say "most", at least in my experience) really don't significantly move the needle for a company in terms of revenue, margin, or other financial metrics; they are things that are being done because they "have to" to it... CRMs, ERPs, etc. Sure, there are indirect productivity gains, but simply having the system vs. using paper (or not having it) is such a productivity boost, whether the screens have perfect UI/UX or are kind of garbage is a much smaller concern.

So that's the perspective, and the outcome is exactly what you have been writing about lately... companies don't invest much in UI/UX, the people they hire are juniors right out of questionable bootcamps with little experience and often little talent (but little paychecks to suit), they cut the UI/UX teams, etc. etc. etc.

We're seeing the same pattern with the Agile coaches and such too, for the same reasons.

So much of what you and others see as ideal, best, most effective workflow to deliver maximum results are doing things that the decision makers just don't see as having payoff inline with the costs. Doesn't mean they don't see the value - they often do - but getting down to the bottom line, they just aren't seeing the numbers to justify the expense and the cost.

So the real question, in my mind, is how can UI/US show ROI? Especially on a project that is directly connected to revenue? And I really don't know the answer to that.

J.Ja