We all want to improve the user experience. But what do you do when there’s no chance of building a full-scale UX team?
That’s exactly the challenge Oxford University faced. And in a recent session I ran with Sarah Zama, Head of UX at Oxford, we shared the journey of how we tackled that problem by setting up a UX Centre of Excellence, without a huge team or budget.
If you’re struggling to scale UX across your organization, this session might just give you the spark (or excuse) you need.
What We Covered
The webinar walks through the process of embedding UX at scale without hiring dozens of designers or researchers. Instead, Oxford built a small but mighty team focused on enablement, education, and culture change.
Here’s a quick snapshot of what we shared:
Why traditional UX teams weren’t going to cut it
Oxford has thousands of developers. Building a UX team to match wasn’t realistic. So we had to rethink the model.
How to win buy-in (even in risk-averse environments)
We talked through the business case we used to get leadership support, including how we used digital transformation, risk mitigation, and ROI to make the case.
The logic behind a Centre of Excellence
Instead of a delivery team, we built a strategic team focused on helping others across the university do UX themselves. Think coaching, not coding.
What the team actually does
We shared how the Centre supports colleagues with:
- Practical resources like design systems and vendor checklists
- Services like open door sessions and usability reviews
- Training and workshops tailored to different levels of UX understanding
- A growing community of UX champions across departments
What’s worked (and what we’re still figuring out)
Sarah gave a behind-the-scenes look at how things are going now; from building internal visibility to supporting student UX initiatives and developing a library of public-facing tools.
Why It’s Worth a Watch
If you’re wrestling with how to spread UX best practices without the headcount to match, this session is for you. You’ll see how a handful of people made UX visible and valuable across one of the most complex organizations in the world.
No theory. Just real-world tactics from a team doing the work every day.
Whether you’re in higher ed or not, the lessons apply to any large organization trying to embed UX more deeply.
Grab a cuppa and settle in for an hour. You might leave with a few ideas you can put into practice.
