UX Themes
UX Themes align with Upstream Studios’ vision of strategic partnership, creating vision-first design work, not just tactical execution. They organize work around user problems, needs, and outcomes rather than discrete features, enabling Product Designers to think platform-wide and deliver holistic solutions across multiple milestones.
What are UX Themes?
UX Themes are comprehensive bundles of work that:
- Focus on solving user problems holistically, not fragmenting solutions across isolated features
- Span multiple milestones (typically 3), allowing time for exploration, validation, and iteration
- Organize around Jobs to Be Done (JTBD) methodology
- Enable cross-stage collaboration when user workflows span product areas
- Create a north star vision that guides incremental delivery
Think of themes as strategic design initiatives needed to achieve the overarching goal of your stage group’s main JTBD, while other issues maintain the experience to our standards (bugs, Deferred UX, usability improvements).
Why use UX Themes?
Strategic focus
Themes align Product Design, UX Research, and Product Management on significant problem areas rather than discrete features. This reduces context switching and allows designers to dive deep into comprehensive solutions.
Vision-first design
As emphasized in Upstream Studios, great design starts with vision. Themes establish a north star before breaking work into iterations, ensuring deliberate progress toward transformative outcomes rather than aimless refinement.
Platform-wide thinking
Themes naturally surface opportunities for cross-stage collaboration when user needs span multiple product areas, enabling the platform thinking that defines strategic work.
Collaboration and alignment
Themes unite stable counterparts around comprehensive approaches to executing category vision, helping teams understand the value of design through measurable business outcomes.
Components of a UX Theme
Theme statement
A concise statement combining the beneficiary, their job, and expected outcome:
Structure: (Outcome + Beneficiary + Small Job)
Example: “Reduce the effort for security teams when prioritizing business-critical risks in their assets”
Main JTBD
The main Job-to-Be-Done that contains the task(s) users are undertaking. This ensures focus remains on the main JTBD while working on the theme.
Business objective
Why we’re working on this theme from a business perspective. Serves as a hypothesis: “We know we solved the need if {business outcome} is achieved.”
Confidence level
Assessment of the team’s understanding of the problem and solution space:
- High confidence: Team understands the job, problem is validated through research
- Medium confidence: Partial understanding, may need validation
- Low confidence: Research required to increase confidence and define scope
Timeframe
When work will be delivered:
- Now (1-3 milestones): High confidence, ready for design
- Next (4-7 milestones): May need problem validation research
- Future (7-13 milestones): Research required to increase confidence
- Future+ (13+ milestones): Awaiting further demand
Working with UX Themes
For Product Designers
Most work happens on themes in the “Now” bucket, high-confidence themes ready for design solutions.
Key practices:
- Start with the theme, not individual issues: Design for the whole workflow holistically, not fragmented features
- Establish vision first: Create low-fidelity flows addressing all requirements before detailed design
- Validate early: Test workflows while they’re cheap to change
- Collaborate throughout: Work with PM, Engineering, and fellow designers to refine the vision
- Transition to high-fidelity: Once validated, develop detailed mockups with Pajamas components
- Break down for delivery: Work with counterparts to plan MVCs that deliver incremental value
Upload design assets to the UX Theme issue to maintain it as the SSOT.
For UX Researchers
Work on themes in “Next” or “Future” buckets to stay 2-3 milestones ahead of design. This provides time to design studies, recruit participants, execute research, and summarize results without time pressure.
Research increases theme confidence, moving them from Future → Next → Now buckets.
For Product Design Managers
Collaborate with PMs to:
- Identify strategic UX opportunities that warrant theme-level work
- Ensure themes align with category vision and business objectives
- Balance strategic theme work with maintenance (bugs, Deferred UX)
- Facilitate cross-stage collaboration when themes span multiple groups
Creating UX Themes
UX Themes are created collaboratively between Product Manager, Product Design Manager, and Product Designer when:
- The team needs to define strategic UX direction for their stage group
- Research uncovers unmet needs aligned with category vision
- Product identifies new user needs requiring holistic solutions
- Cross-stage user workflows require coordinated design work
Organizing themes
Use existing product epics, category maturity epics, or vision epics as containers for UX Theme issues. Visualize themes using GitLab boards to create a roadmap view.
Individual theme issues serve as the SSOT for planning and working on strategic initiatives, while boards provide the high-level roadmap view for sharing and communication.
Learn more
- Jobs to Be Done (JTBD) - JTBD framework and methodology
- Upstream Studios vision - Strategic vs tactical positioning
- Product Designer workflow - Vision-first design process
- Nielsen Norman Group UX Roadmap guide - Background on roadmaps
- Nielsen Norman Group UX Theme guide - Theme methodology
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