UX Strategy Masterclass
- Your instructor
- Vitaly Friedman
- Tickets
- Get a ticket ↓
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Workshop includes:
- 🔖 Examples to take away
- 🗣 Interactive sessions
- 📺 Workshop recordings
- 🎤 Dedicated Q&A time
- 🏅 Smashing Certificate
Workshop, 3×2h + Q&A • Fri, Mon & Tue, Dec 11–15 2026
9:00 – 11:30 AM PT • 18:00 – 20:30 CET • Check your time zone ⏰
Large complex projects — from SaaS and B2C to enterprise and B2B — aren’t easy to navigate for UX designers, even with many years of experience. So how do we make an impact, do good work and grow as designers in such difficult environments? How do we make a strong case for UX research and accessibility? How do we wade through layers of internal politics and red tape? Well, let’s figure it out!
In this workshop by Vitaly Friedman, a UX consultant of the European Parliament and Smashing Magazine’s creative lead, you’ll explore pragmatic and practical tactics and strategies to thrive and survive in complex environments, fight through layers of politics, prove the value of your work and choose your career path.
Here’s What You Should Be Expecting:
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Interactive live sessions
3 × 2.5h live sessions
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Practical insights
From methodology and workflow to creation
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Hands-on exercises
With reviews by your teacher
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Lifetime access
To all video recordings and examples
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Dedicated Q&A time
To ask all your questions
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Smashing Certificate
A well-deserved reward for your work
Video Message From Vitaly
A short introduction to the workshop by Vitaly himself.
$300.00
$400.00
With all video recordings &
slides.
🎪 Save 25% on this workshop with a Smashing Membership, and make your membership fee ($99) back within 1 workshop or conference!
You can spend years carefully crafting UX experiences, yet still have your research and interviews make no impact on the roadmap, backlog or product decisions. Without a UX strategy, design remains a service function. That won’t change until you learn to defend your decisions at the business level.
That’s exactly what the UX Strategy workshop with Vitaly Friedman is for. You’ll work through UX strategy, stakeholder management, prioritization, and risk management — and leave with ready-made artifacts you can apply right away.
In this workshop, you’ll learn how to
- Build a UX strategy using the UX Strategy Canvas
- Task prioritization using the effort–value curve
- Managing design debt: tracking, handling and resolving
- Improving legacy systems: approaches and methods
- Thrive and survive in complex environments,
- UX research without direct access to users
- Explain, present and defend your design decisions,
- Make a strong case for UX, research and accessibility,
- Conduct UX research, even without access to users,
- Wade through layers of internal politics,
- Manage conflicting feedback from stakeholders,
- Estimate time and complexity for your work,
- Make an impact in legacy-ridden environments,
- Boost UX in a company with low UX maturity.
$300.00
$400.00
With all video recordings &
slides.
🎪 Save 25% on this workshop with a Smashing Membership, and make your membership fee ($99) back within 1 workshop or conference!
Who is this workshop for?
This workshop is tailored for advanced UX practitioners, design leaders, product managers, project managers, and UX researchers who are eager to become a better and a more successful UX designer.
You’ll walk away with a powerful toolbox of techniques and real-world examples to apply to your projects, products, or apps.
About Vitaly Friedman
Vitaly loves beautiful content and does not give up easily. Born in Minsk, Belarus, he moved to Germany in 1999 where he studied computer science and mathematics. While writing algebra proofs and preparing for software engineering at nights in the kitchen, at the same time he discovered passion for typography, UX and writing.
His curiosity drove him from interface design to front-end to performance optimization to accessibility and back to user experience over all the years.
Time & Schedule
This workshop is split over three days. Our virtual doors open at 8:45, we start at 9 AM PT.
The workshop sessions will run on the following days:
- Fri, December 11, 9:00 – 11:30 AM PT
- Mon, December 14, 9:00 – 11:30 AM PT
- Tue, December 15, 9:00 – 11:30 AM PT
You can always re-watch the sessions at a more convenient time and follow the workshop at your own pace.
Day 1: Show The Impact Of Your Work
8:45 AM PT
Virtual doors open, registration, chat and introductions.
9:00 AM – 11:00 AM
- How design is actually seen by most companies,
- The role and the impact of your design work,
- Key differences in B2C vs. B2B vs. Enterprise for designers,
- How to track and show the impact of your design work,
- Key elements of business thinking for designers,
- Choosing and prioritizing most impactful design work,
- How to explain, present and defend your design decisions.
11:00 AM – 11:30 AM
Q&A with Vitaly on the day’s material. Networking!
Day 2: Navigating Legacy and Politics
8:45 AM PT
Virtual doors open, registration, chat and introductions.
9:00 AM – 11:00 AM
- How to build a UX strategy from scratch and its key components,
- How to prioritize impactful work and show its impact in practice,
- How to approach legacy projects and enterprise projects with high visibility,
- How to manage challenging stakeholders and influence without authority,
- How to wade confidently through layers of internal politics,
- Managing conflicting feedback from stakeholders,
- How to negotiate budget constraints and define realistic scope,
- Strategic and tactical thinking to get around red tape,
- How to boost UX in a company with low UX maturity.
11:00 AM – 11:30 AM
Q&A with Vitaly on the day’s material. Networking!
Day 3: Practical Skills
8:45 AM PT
Virtual doors open, registration, chat and introductions.
9:00 AM – 11:00 AM
- How to estimate time, complexity and pricing for your work,
- How to run better design reviews and critiques,
- How to improve brainstorming sessions,
- How to get constructive feedback,
- How to consider risks and crisis in design process,
- Where to start when redesigning a big project,
- How to manage and tackle design debt,
- How to conduct UX research without access to users in B2B/Enterprise,
- How to present and explain your design work to executives,
- How to make a strong case for UX, research and accessibility.
11:00 AM – 11:30 AM
Q&A with Vitaly on the day’s material. Networking!
$300.00
$400.00
With all video recordings &
slides.
🎪 Save 25% on this workshop with a Smashing Membership, and make your membership fee ($99) back within 1 workshop or conference!