UX is not small pieces of other disciplines
So let’s stop using venn diagrams to explain ourselves
I wrote the following as an introduction to design in a talk I gave a few years ago, but I thought it was time to bring it out in a standalone piece.
On August 11th, 2016 I gave a talk about design to a room of aspiring developers at Dallas-Ft. Worth Women Who Code. Design is a really large and broad topic — and goes way beyond the colors and fonts we typically think of. To start off, I explored what others in the room thought of when they thought of design.
What is Design?
“All the things that are pleasing to the eye & soul”
“Intentional creation :)”
“How you use something”
“Making things more easily usable”
“Aesthetically beautiful & symmetrical colors, shapes & styles.”
So, as you can see, if you ask what design is to a group of 10 people, you’re going to get 10 different responses. I’m part of Designer Hangout and even we can’t figure it out. Here are some diagrams that I found while I was exploring how to describe design.
Different diagrams have different areas they emphasize. You’ll notice that all of them are Venn diagrams — emphasizing the UX is the overlap of several disciplines
How can we keep saying that only some pieces of strategy or only some pieces of content affect a user’s experience?
Design is as a set of disciplines that make up a whole. So instead, I propose this diagram:
On one side we have Research, which informs our our Design that achieves user and business goals, broken up into 4 major categories.
All those things working together in their totality is Design.
So what do you think — how do you visually diagram what Design is? How do you define it?
Did this help you?
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Ashley Crutcher is now the Director of Experience Strategy at InterVarsity located in Madison, WI. She tweets at @ashleyspixels and enjoys cuddling with her furkiddos, crocheting/knitting, ringing handbells, and thinking too much about everything.
