Design Rhetoric Bulls**t
The word “user experience” makes me involuntarily cringe. It elicits the same reaction from me as nails on a chalkboard. It is also one of the most common phrases in my profession— “design”, which as of late is also high up on my semantic shitlist, eclipsed only by the seemingly innocuous “simple”.
Aside from sounding pretentious as hell, the word “user experience” has been diluted to a point in which it holds no actual meaning. Now that the notion of design in technology has become a part of popular culture (generally a good thing) these words consequentially turned into rhetorical tools used to prove a point and mask the absence of an actual argument.
I once worked with a colleague* who wielded the word simple like a freaking ninja. He could advocate for the most complicated creation flows before casually dropping his ace in the hole; “keep it simple”. Boom. Game over. Who the hell was I— who was anyone to argue against the virtue of simplicity?
It’s like we’ve forgotten that the word simple isn’t exclusively synonmous with “good”— after all, there’s the simple-minded. Yet it seems that simple, design, and user experience now come preloaded with positive connotation, when more often than not design and user experiences can so easily be bad.
At TechCrunch Disrupt there it was again, in every single pitch and presentation: “Fund my startup because we have a talented team, in a $300 trillion dollar industry, and an amazing user experience.” Alas. My livelihood reduced to nothing more than a buzzword. You’d think at this point having a decent user experience would be viewed more like performance; not as a differentiator, but a requirement.
The main issue I’m trying to get at is that if one doesn’t first take the time to deconstruct the rhetoric, stupid decisions will be made in the name of supposed “good design”.
Obviously there is a time and place to speak in generalities (such as being limited to 140 characters) but when it’s time for a serious product discussion speak in specifics. Include context for your compliments. If your gut is screaming “this is bad design!” then determine where expectations diverged from execution and suggest actionable improvements. Stop “keeping it simple” and start keeping it real. ;)
This post was inspired by Sam Leith’s Words Like Loaded Pistols.
*Fun Fact: the same colleague also once sent an email containing nothing but a gigantic photo of Steve Job’s face to prove a point.
