“Don’t worry about the user, just do the UX”
Without a doubt this is the most memorable quote of my career.
Sitting in a small meeting room with the product manager and an executive, I found myself once again fighting the good fight: asking about the users we were designing for, the problems we were solving.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record player, I pressed again: “So who is the user?”. I could feel the tension. My question had been heard, but eye contact made it clear that it was just a burden in the way of “getting 💩 done”.
Making it clearer still was that quote that followed:
“Don’t worry about the user, just do the UX”
In case you missed it, that was:
“Don’t worry about the USER, just do the UX”
Now I’ll admit that yelling doesn’t solve anything, and shouting at an employer while still on probation isn’t great for your career either, but that user… that poor, unrepresented user who would have been thrown head first into a solution for someone else’s problem, who was going to advocate for them? Well, as you know, not all heroes wear capes…
My rage builds, all else fades:
“THE ‘U’… IN ‘UX’… STANDS FOR ‘USER’!”
I exclaim to people in the room and beyond. The room grew smaller and quieter. The product manager stifled a smile. The executive was stunned, and expertly changed the topic.
—
The longer I work as a “UX designer” (or similar titles that adorn my email footer) the more I come across this erroneous thinking of “don’t worry about the user, just do the UX”. People say it all the time, just not out loud. They say it in the way they tackle problems, in the way they run projects, products and companies. That said, credit where credit’s due — at least this person said it out loud.
The thing is, despite it’s obvious name, “User Experience” is often misunderstood. A few things happen when this occurs:
- The user is forgotten about, and the whole design process turns into wireframes and interface design subject to the HiPPO
- UX becomes a verb, and people say things like “just UX it” — Would you tell a dentist to “just dentist it” or a receptionist to “reception this”? What does that even mean?!
- We create products that fail or we misattribute success
The U in UX is not short for “you”
It doesn’t matter where you work, you’ll face this problem in your colleagues and in yourself. As people become comfortable with their roles and products, and as we settle into our jobs, there’s a potential to forget the user because we feel that we “get it”. We’re adamant that we know the solution and that we represent the user’s thinking. We begin to replace the “U” in UX with ourselves, or our colleagues.
But it’s not called ‘IX’, now is it?
Almost daily I hear stakeholders and designers say stuff like, “I wouldn’t do <insert a task>” as a reason to not design in a particular way — even though they aren’t anything like the user. Now fair enough, the stakeholder’s job may not be to advocate for the user, but guess what? The designer’s is… As designers we need to be advocates for our users, not for ourselves or our colleagues. We need to evangelise the value of listening to them and designing for users. This is our superpower.
Heed the wisdom of uncle Ben when he said: “with great power comes great responsibility”.
We have a great power and responsibility to be evangelists for user-centric design. It’s up to us to fight off the attitude of “don’t worry about the user” and if necessary: raise our voices in protest! It’s up to us to make sure that “UX” never becomes “IX” or “YouX”.
How do we get people to be more user-centric?
Speak up
It’s at this point I want to channel John Farnham: “You’re the voice, try and understand it. Make a noise and make it clear”. If you know your users, then when decisions need to be made and when solutions need to be justified, you can speak up for them and point to the data that supports your decision. It’s as simple as:
- Know your users (research)
- Speak on their behalf (advocate)
In those long meetings where engineers, designers and product managers get stuck talking in circles about a solution, you have an opportunity to steer the conversation back to the user and the problem you’re solving. Think of it as a trump card; no need to shout, just use the data.
Include them
One of the best ways to get the team to buy into user-centric thinking is to include them along the way. For example, at Domain we’re working to include stakeholders & engineers in user research projects. Not only will this help get others on board, but it will help identify different problems and solutions you would never discover on your own.
Here are a few ways that you can include your team:
Involve stakeholders in user research
Having stakeholders hear directly from the users is incredibly powerful, don’t keep all that good insight to yourself. If you’re interviewing users for personas or user journeys, invite engineers to join a call or come meet the user.
Let them join in on customer support calls
We also get engineers and product managers to sit with customer support and listen to calls. It’s a great way to build empathy with our users across the business.
Get them to observe prototyping
If you’re holding prototype testing sessions, get product managers to help with observation or share the testing room feed with your team.
Share the knowledge
Your engineers and product managers aren’t reading the same articles and books as you — and you’re not reading theirs either. They haven’t studied your courses or had your experience. All the things you’ve learnt or are learning are stuck in your head. As an advocate, you’ll need to impart pieces of this learning if you want your colleagues to understand.
Here are a few ways you could do that:
Regular sharing of work and results
Demonstrate the effect of user research and surface insights. Explain what you’re doing and why, then show the results.
Workshops over presentations
No-one wants to sit through a lecture, so make sure that when you present to a team you allow room for participation. At Domain we run persona workshops so everyone is invested in the process, not just the findings.
Celebrate the wins
Celebrate product wins by attributing the success in part to user-centric thinking. Recognise when your product has successfully solved a user’s problem; recognition will encourage repeated behaviour.
Be patient
We naturally solve problems subjectively, so getting others to remember who it is that we’re designing for takes time. Be patient with engineers and product managers who are slow to learn (yelling really doesn’t accomplish much). Over time as you include the team in your process, they’ll get onboard.
During product design workshops, I’ve often heard engineers say things like: “Oh, I never thought of it like that” or “I didn’t know that the user wanted that”. Trust me, when you hear this you’ll involuntarily have a breakfast club moment when you leave that meeting.
Change is slow, but if you continue to advocate and demonstrate the value of designing for the user, you’ll begin to see your team & company create better products.
TL;DR
A boss once told me: “don’t worry about the user, just do the UX”. I was shocked, this was the first time I’d heard anyone say something like that. Wherever you work you’ll encounter people with this attitude. They might not say it outloud, but they’ll suggest it with the way they make product decisions.
As a product designer, your job is to advocate for the user and to impress the value of user-centric design on your team. You can do this by:
- Speaking up for the user
- Including your colleagues in research
- Educating your colleagues on the value of user-centric design
- Being patient and knowing it takes time to bring them all around
Now get it off your chest
I know my story’s conjured up images of your old bosses. Feel free to use the comment section as group therapy.
