Core Governance
UXR Independence and the One-Way Authority Rule
A future UXR service organization may help institutions meet UXR standards, but it and its clients may never influence what UXR is, measures, decides, or publishes.
Status: Open for Review
Version: 0.4
Summary: A future UXR service organization may help institutions meet UXR standards, but it and its clients may never influence what UXR is, measures, scores, decides, or publishes.
The rule governs authority, not revenue flow. A downstream service organization may financially support UXR. It may never purchase control, access, interpretation, exceptions, suppression, or favorable treatment.
Possible future structure. UXR may someday create or own a separate service organization that helps companies, government agencies, schools, healthcare systems, cities, and other institutions understand and meet published UXR standards or Blue Zone criteria. This remains a possible future structure, not a current program or commitment.
What payment buys. The service organization may charge for analysis, training, redesign, implementation support, and other labor that helps an institution improve the experience it actually provides. Revenue from that work may potentially help support UXR. Payment buys assistance only. It buys no authority over UXR, no special access to UXR, no guaranteed result, and no favorable treatment from UXR.
The plain rule. Companies cannot buy a better UXR score. They may pay qualified people to help them build a better experience.
One-way authority. Governance and decision-making authority may flow from UXR to the service organization, never in reverse. Neither the service organization nor any client, funder, officer, employee, contractor, or partner may direct or influence UXR's mission, governance, evidence, methods, standards, scores, findings, publication decisions, corrections, or appeals.
No hidden test and no private scoring advantage. The standards an institution is trying to meet must be public. The service organization and its customers receive no nonpublic scoring data, advance notice, private interpretation, voting rights, exceptions, or access unavailable to the public. Expertise may help an institution apply the published target, but it may not reveal a different target.
No suppression or score negotiation. Paid work may not delay publication, suppress a case, alter evidence, negotiate a score, weaken a standard, or convert promised improvement into credit before the improvement is verified.
The entire rule. UXR defines and independently applies the standards. A separate service organization may help institutions meet them and may potentially return revenue to support UXR. Neither the service organization nor its customers may change what the standards mean, what evidence UXR considers, or how UXR applies them.
Question for Review
Does this language distinguish financial support from purchased authority clearly enough?