

The myth of the "UX designer" - bgnm2000
http://elliotnash.me/the-myth-of-the-ux-designer

======
calinet6
"UX designer" is a bit of an ambiguous phrase, and it gets the correct amount
of sarcastic scorn for being a buzzword.

But I think it means something more important: as you say, good UX requires a
recognition that _everything_ that goes into your application contributes to
the experience. Software design, copy, marketing, UI, etc. etc. Everything. We
all know this and understand this.

What UX is, then, is _software quality systems engineering_. "Everything that
goes into the experience" is no longer simply visual design or UI components,
but a complex web of inputs and influences to manage in order to ensure
quality. A good UI designer has one piece of that puzzle and ensures the
visuals and interactions are spot on, but a good UX designer takes all that
and more into account and extends their influence to many other areas outside
the visual. It's not their job to do all the work, but it is their job to
manage the systems in place to ensure the experience is high quality.

Software is getting more complex and more interesting. The "UX designer"
moniker is just a response to that; a recognition that UI designers are
becoming more holistic and with wider reach. They are becoming quality
management systems engineers. This requires more than just UI design, though
most UI designers probably naturally have the skills and knowledge to make it
happen.

It's a positive development IMHO. You may not like the broad nebulous term UX,
but I think if we think of it more as systems design, maybe we can start to
pin it down and make it a useful job title.

~~~
AJ007
I see strong parallels between UX designer and game designer. It was not until
more recently that it has become generally accepted that everything from time
killing mobile games to enterprise software demands good UX. Decades ago game
designers figured out that a good UX meant a larger player base and ultimately
more sales -- rather than contracts and inescapable legacy lock ins.

UX is about creating a clear, intuitive experience for the user (the front and
back end work that makes that possible.) This is done through consistency of
patterns, both unique to the application and drawn on existing and historical
work (also makes for a good argument against software patents, but that is
another issue.) At the very least, this requires some one or a group of people
to create an agreed upon design document from the start.

Steve Jobs view of the liberal arts goes a long way in explaining UX.
Everything matters. That hardly means every single team member should be an
omniscient visionary with hundreds of niche interests.

------
mrxd
Reading this made me wonder if the author really has a good understanding of
what's going on in the UX field. Maybe he's run into a few people calling
themselves UX designers and then generalizing from a small sample into the
entire field? I don't know. Here's some things that I wish everyone
understood:

1\. UX designers aren't solely in charge of the user experience - Yes, UX
designers have been saying that from day one. UX is about breaking down
organizational barriers and facilitating collaboration across disciplines.
That's fundamental to the concept, because looking at a product from a user's
perspective, you don't see organizational divisions, internal politics,
fiefdoms dominated by specific disciplines and so on. Users experience a
product in a holistic way, but organizations are fragmented into
specializations. Poor UX is often the result of organizations optimizing for
the efficiency of division of labor without understanding the tradeoff for the
end user. That's a fundamental mismatch that UX tries to remedy.

2\. UX designers didn't take ownership away from anyone. When the discipline
was first emerging, very few people cared. Over the last 15 years, the trend
has been UX designers saying things like "How do I get my developers to care
about the user's experience?" Now UX is starting to become strategically
important, and (some, not all) developers realize that they're getting left
behind. That's not UX designers doing it to you, that's a self-inflicted
wound. I started as a developer 10 years ago, but quickly realized that UX was
the future, and made the switch. UX designers have been banging the drum for
15 years trying to get everyone working together. A lot of developers are only
now starting to wake up and realize they need to be involved, but find
themselves at a 10-15 year disadvantage. Others stepped up and took ownership
over something that no one else cared about and today they have experience,
knowledge, skills and a track record in a strategically important area. Sorry
about that. We tried to tell you.

3\. Elliot comes off pretty naive when he talks about iteration. That's a
pretty new idea in software, which has historically been dominated by a
requirements-oriented traditional engineering mindset. As a result, some
developers talk about iteration like they invented it, but other product
design disciplines - architecture, graphic design, film, fashion, industrial
design - have been doing iteration for many decades, probably even centuries.
You know how designers talk about mockups? Here's the wikipedia definition of
a mockup:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mockup](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mockup)

> "In manufacturing and design, a mockup, or mock-up, is a scale or full-size
> model of a design or device, used for teaching, demonstration, design
> evaluation, promotion, and other purposes. A mockup is a prototype if it
> provides at least part of the functionality of a system and enables testing
> of a design. Mock-ups are used by designers mainly to acquire feedback from
> users."

4\. There are still many large barriers to developers participating in the UX
process, but the important ones aren't about job titles. Here are some things
developers need to deal with when getting involved in UX:

\- Lack of career incentives - when you interview for your next job, are you
going to be asked any questions about the UX of what you worked on? Is your
performance at your current job evaluated in terms of your impact on UX? Do
you hold yourself personally accountable for poor UX? If not, then like the
chicken and pig fable, you're involved but not committed. It's one thing to
say that everyone is responsible for a good UX. It's another to actually hold
people (or yourself) responsible.

\- Lack of empathy - you're building a product for someone else to use. If you
privilege your own preferences and way of working, if you lack the flexibility
to adopt the mindset of someone who is very different from you, you won't
succeed in UX. You're probably very smart. Don't let that get in the way of
empathizing with people who you think are beneath you.

\- Lack of skills - you don't need visual design skills to contribute to UX.
At a strategic level, UX is about understanding people: what they need and
want, what motivates them, what's important to them. The best UX designers are
insightful observers of human nature.

\- Over-specialization - for some people, their whole lives revolve around
their job. Good UX designers are relentlessly curious about a wide range of
topics and activities. They don't accept artificial divisions of labor at
work, and definitely don't let them carry over into their personal lives.
Remember the saying: nothing human is alien to me.

~~~
bgnm2000
I have a feeling you over analyzed what I wrote. I wasn't saying UX isn't
important - my job title is literally a UX engineer. The company I work with
prides itself on the user experience coming first. So while it may be
something I defend first, its something on everyone's mind - and when it isn't
it can become a problem.

Steve Jobs for example cared about every little detail that impacted the user
experience. He also wanted everyone in his company to care in the same way.

My point is just that while UX designers may be leading the charge, they
largely need to get off any "high horse" they're on, and understand an entire
team is responsible for a good experience, even if they are the driving force.

~~~
mrxd
Getting whole teams involved in the process has been standard practice for UX
designers for over a decade. For the most part, the problem has been getting
non-UX folks to care at all.

What you describe sounds like a scenario where everyone wants to participate,
but for some reason the UX designer refuses to collaborate? I've never heard
of that happening, and it runs counter to my personal experience and pretty
much every UX designer I've ever talked to, so my gut feeling is that you're
reacting to a unique situation.

------
geebee
I don't care much about the terms, but my general test is this: would this
person be useful on a small team?

A software "architect" who can't be a developer wouldn't be useful on a small
team. A "UX" designer who can't create mock ups, wireframes, or actual code
(certainly CSS/HTML, let's hope for javascript) wouldn't be useful on a small
team.

I have trouble believing that people who wouldn't be useful on a small team
would be useful on a large team.

~~~
seivan
JavaScript, Objective-C, Java. Basically anything related to the platform.

An iOS developer who can design and knows how to blend colours and make
smaller icons will basically outdo every UI/UX/YADAYADA designer everywhere.

Not to be confused with a graphic designer. That shit is actually difficult.

------
mbesto
UX is quite simply put _" the elimination of frustration"_

 _Do you know who is responsible for creating a good user experience?EVERYONE
ON YOUR TEAM. EVERYONE._

I understand the sentiment that the OP is trying to bring, but this statement
is akin to stating something like "everyone is responsible for the commercial
success of the business".

The role of a UX designer (or perhaps a UX Lead in this case) is to take on
the responsibility of ensuring that frustrations of the customer are
eliminating by all means possible. The problem is that not everyone in your
organization - no matter how big or small - has the time to be able to
empathize with your customers. So it's slightly disingenuous to assume that
everyone bear that responsibility. It's the UX Lead/Designer's responsible to
engage with the customer and feed that back in a meaningful way to the people
responsible for actually cutting the code that renders the experience.

~~~
bgnm2000
I agree and disagree, only in the sense that - everything impacts a user's
experience. The entire team should have that on their mind to a varying
degree.

------
flyosity
Another problem with people conflating "UX Designer" with "UI Designer" is
that if you put "UX" in a job title hoping to get "UI" folks, you will get the
wrong people. I have seen this first-hand now with two companies: the job
title was set by someone who didn't really understand the difference and
instead of getting qualified visual/interface designers applying for the role
we got people who draw boxes and arrows, extremely low-fidelity wireframes,
and user researchers. Not people who cranked hard on the actual product, but
people who did a lot of "meta" work that only affected the product in passing.

In larger companies there may be a need for "UX" designers like that, but at
small companies when people all need to wear multiple hats, you don't just
want a wireframer or flow diagrammer... you want a designer who can think
about the overall experience, then design it, then create the actual pixels,
then hopefully write some front-end code as well. I have yet to meet anyone
who considers themselves a "UX Designer" to be able to do any of that.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
You mean, you got real designers when what you really wanted were production
art technicians? Sounds even worse than that: you got interaction designers
when you might have been happy with visual designers.

Most good designers don't have time to write code, but some bad/mediocre ones
are ok at with it as they are less specialized. It's rare that designers would
even have time to write code even if they could or wanted to; usually
developers are blocked on them, not vice versa.

So what you want is an interaction+visual designer who can also do production
and on top of that can write code. And you probably want them also to be good.
Your company is screwed.

~~~
nahname
The best designers I have worked with write code or wrote code at one point in
their career. It is difficult working in a medium you do not understand.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
The worst designers I've worked with were the ones who knew how to write code
and picked up illustrator by playing with CS...hey look I can draw! Really,
the training and practice that goes into a good designer is huge, if they also
learn writing code, something has to give. Visual designers are much more
difficult in this regard than interaction designers, who are often just former
programmers anyways (though the best ones I've worked with schooled
as...architects).

~~~
calinet6
"if they also learn writing code, something has to give"

Disagree. This is a false limit, and a false criticism rooted in ignorance and
lack of experience. I don't know what else to say other than as a designer
with a CS degree, I actually take offense to this statement. I know how much
greater value I offer and would like other designers and programmers I work
with to reach similar levels of integrated skill.

Specialization is for the industrial revolution—the technological age requires
expert polymaths.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
If it wasn't clear, CS in my previous post meant adobe creative studio, not
computer science. I just realized these acronyms clash.

Designer have lots of skills, so much that even they have to specialize often
along additional axises that might not even be obvious to us (motion or color
design as a specialization of visual). We are happy to just get one who has
promising design skills, and most of the designer+programmers I've interviewed
just don't even come close, sorry.

How many programmers can draw? Is it a hiring requirement?

------
nahname
Well put. The user experience is everyone's responsibility. I've seen a number
of teams that let the 'UX Specialist' dictate the entire UI. Usually research
that does not account for cognitive bias is done in place of testing.
Effectively you are basing the entire UI on the opinion of one person. That is
always a bad idea.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Or a great idea, depending on the person. Design by committee, however, is
almost always wrong.

------
rosspw
News flash: titles are useless. what does a "CEO" do at a five person startup.
You can call them anything you want, but someone needs to be responsible for
owning a design process.

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TeeWEE
I like this explanation. Often you read articles about self proclaimed UX
experts talking about their research and thinking about the product is what
makes a product have a good UX.

Nope, its the iterative process. Good UX people, Good developers, and short
iterative cycles. Not just market research. A good UX guy listens to the
developer too.

------
normloman
Bah. Mere semantics. Stop quibbling.

We don't need any more articles like these.

~~~
mcguire
If you aren't going to quibble over semantics, what are you going to quibble
over? Syntax?

~~~
vvohra87
He said "Stop quibbling" meaning do not quibble(Argue or raise objections
about a trivial matter). Not over semantics, not over syntax. Have meaningful
debate and discussion.

