How Buddhism brought me to UX

In Buddhism, we are told that we need to stop running for happiness and live in the present moment. We also are taught to live a life of truth. No wonder I have been so attracted to the user experience field. I have been coding for a long time, but now I cannot stop thinking about the person on the other side and what they are thinking when they use the product.

Good user experience design forces people to ask the right questions to cut through the culture and perceptions of the people and get to the truth. The truth about their customers, stakeholders and themselves. We need to help people stop running away from the hard questions, the so called “pink elephant” in the room, and help them at least give the elephant a peanut.

Getting to the truth with stakeholders may expose things about the company or it’s culture that will make people feel uncomfortable. But without understanding these deeper problems, it may be hard to create a great experience for users. Just as when you try to face yourself, you will use the excuses and habitual thoughts to keep you from the truth. You need to either meditate or have someone on the outside tell you like it is, and you need to be open to it, knowing that it will help you. This is how you should treat your stakeholders, you both need each other. You both want to create a great product and maintain the relationships you have now with the company. The stakeholders know the true culture of the company and where the product needs improvement but maybe the culture did not allow them to speak up or maybe they were in line for a promotion and did not want to stir things up.
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Working with stakeholders, we can take the information privately and do something about it.

Realizing this strong connection between helping others and helping yourself can help you realize empathy for these people. You can be that good friend who does not sugarcoat things but will hold your hand when he tells you that you are messing up and why.

Being in the presence of an other, listening, caring, and paying attention to their sincere expression of honesty is a privilege. It provokes you. It surprises you. It challenges you. It reminds you of what it means to be human. It is what gives us the courage to express our own sincere honesty.
— Seung Chan Lim

At some level, you can begin to replace optimism or pessimism with conviction. Facing these big questions means we have more purpose because you have at least thought about what lies beyond your current project. When you are working on a hard project, you can always refer to the purpose of the project as a motivator (if it means something to you) but if you are too scared to look at what you are building in the long run, you won’t be that motivated.

There you have it. Not only does the UX process apply to work but to life. Simply replace “the user” with life:

Ask the right questions about the user. Uncover the hidden assumptions about the user. Sketch or write until you have something that feels right. Verify it with the user. Make it happen.

So be present when you talk with your stakeholders, don’t run from the big questions. I find I have been doing this all along for myself, so it is time to reapply this and make others happy through better products.