User-Centered Performance and How to Stop It

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I grew up as a musical theater kid. There, I said it. I loved to sing (decently), and act (badly). As a boy soprano I was the lead in a tiny opera. In high school I was in Into the Woods and Guys & Dolls. I strutted my stuff on that stage enough times that I learned how performers can be sometimes. All show, not much substance. (Not me, of course.)

And while a life in the theater wasn’t for me, I did develop a strong radar for when someone isn’t being authentic, just giving me the business. And in my career in UX, I spot it everywhere. It’s what I’d like to call user-centered performance.

User centered performance (UCP) is work we do primarily to signal to each other that we care about users. We’re playing a part, dutiful actors in a system which tells us we have to be curious and user-focused. We’re all about empathy because that’s what user-centered practice is, and Don Norman told us so. We’re customer obsessed because it’s what good PMs are supposed to be, and Jeff Bezos told us so.

This is it! My big user-centered number!

For researchers and designers, UCP is sometimes a thing we do to ourselves. More often we do it because someone asked us to, or because we’re trapped in a broken system. Most user centered performances are well intentioned. But nonetheless, rather than doing well timed, crucial user-focused work that can drive better products and the bottom line, we’re out here on a chorus line, just waiting for the applause.

The good news is that it’s easy to do better. When we’re aware, we can stop doing user-centered work for its own sake. Instead, UX should focus on our value as matchmakers who find the glorious overlaps between what users want and what the business needs. That’s how we’ll steal the show.

User Centered Performance

The first step is to get to know the signs and symptoms. If you’ve seen any of these things, then you’ve probably encountered UCP:

• A designer or a PM who arrives at the last moment, suggesting a quick user study. You know, just to get some feedback and “validate our assumptions.” But no one really wants to hear about the problems you uncover, and it’s too late to do anything about it anyway.
• A planning or design process that incorporates research, but only once a quarter/half/year. Everyone (including researchers) enthusiastically dreams up studies that might be valuable, but the impact is nowhere to be found when it’s showtime. The studies are dutifully completed for an audience that’s long since moved on to the next hot ticket (without telling you).
• Start up founders who commission a round of research to inform their entry into a new segment or to make a strategy pivot. They look good to investors but, overly confident and narrowly focused as they are, the founders aren’t interested in learning, ultimately sticking to their gut.
• Directors and Execs who profess their desire to get closer to the customer, and ask for focus groups or a so-called “listening tour.” They meet a handful of folks, engage deeply in a few conversations, then cherry pick the insights that support the points they were going to make anyway.

8 Shows A Week

Ok fine, I’m being dramatic to make a point (oh, the irony!). These are extreme stereotypes — UCP is usually not this obvious, but it’s extremely common. People engaging in UCP aren’t always aware they’re doing it. And certainly not maliciously. Instead, it happens when we think user-centered practice is an end in itself, when product processes don’t incorporate users at the right times, and when we aren’t critical about the business and product impact of the user-centered work we do.

The lights are so bright!

But whether or not the motives are wicked, UCP is a real flop. Why? Three big reasons:

1. First and foremost, it’s a huge waste of time. We spend time planning and executing on user-centered UX work that won’t make a difference — it’s full of valuable insight, but there’s no one there to act on it (did it even make a sound?).
2. UCP is a substitute for actual learning. It’s an incredible missed opportunity to drive better products and bigger profits by genuinely incorporating insights.
3. Last but not least, it contributes to the damaging perception that UX isn’t an impactful discipline. When researchers and designers spend their time doing phantom work for people who are just putting on a show, those same people can reasonably conclude the work doesn’t matter.

Add Substance to Performance

So now that we’re talking about UCP, we’re already in a better place to do something about it. What do we do?

Call it Out. Name that beautiful beast. A lot of UCP occurs because it’s the work our cross-functional partners are asking us to do. When we’re at risk of wasting our time on it, we can take a moment to ask each other critical questions (with directness and kindness, of course):

• Are we doing this work just to “check the box?” Talking to users just to say we did it? For it’s own sake rather than for a specific product/business reason? Let’s just not.
• Is this the right time to do research? The questions may be valuable. But if the project doesn’t spin up at a time when we can genuinely use the insights, then we’re just going to be Les Misérables.
• Do we have the right approach, culture, and intention for this work? In order for insights to matter, we have to be willing to make a different decision. Are we curious and humble enough to be wrong and pivot quickly?

And then, after we’ve asked these questions, we can stop doing it. Saying yes to performative work might be worth doing to build a relationship or cement the culture. Very occasionally. But mostly our role should be to turn performance to substance.

Doing too much performative work has contributed to the tough spot that UX is in as a discipline right now, too often on the outside looking in. We don’t have to be waving through a window while product gets built without us — to get back inside, we have to be laser focused on UX work that’s truly impactful.

Shift the Mindset. How did user centered performance become so prevalent? Well, I think we might need to accept the possibility that we went too far with the whole user-centered design thing. Over the last 15+ years, we might have lost sight of the necessary balance between user needs and business success.

Many designers and researchers identify their role in a cross-functional team as The Voice of the User™. They think of their primary responsibility as empathy and representation.

I think that’s beautiful but incomplete. In UX, our job shouldn’t be empathy only, or even empathy first. We shouldn’t get stuck as only the voice of the user, or we’re just making the worst pies in London.

Instead our core role should be matchmakers. Matchmakers find that glorious overlap between what users want and what the business needs. Inside that amazing seed, right at the center of the venn, is where the best product and business ideas lie. That’s because it’s where incentives are most aligned for creating loyalty and long-term growth.

This is a bigger shift than some may realize. It’s a lot to take a field that’s largely defined itself in one circle and move it into both. To do that well, we need to deeply educate ourselves about the business. Then we do the extra work to make our UX work truly business driven, aligned to strategy, pointed at business and strategic problems. In that situation, the performative work will just naturally get crowded out.

BE OK — Here’s the thing (looks around dramatically to be sure it’s safe before whispering furtively), maybe we don’t need to be so committed to our users ALLLL the time. It turns out you can build a product without research. You can even build a good one (probably not a great one). Plenty of startups can get a v1 of something out the door without being very user-centered. They might not pivot very well, but it’s ok.

This is not a threat to our industry. The best products will always come from insights in the end, so you don’t have to be threatened. Our livelihoods are safe. And what’s more, your user-centered outrage that your team just doesn’t understand (stamps feet in time with the words) — that someone might possibly ship without insights, or be profit focused in a moment — it actively damages UX as a field.

It tells people that we’re just in it for the fame. We’re more concerned with our crusade than helping the business get ahead. And that’s definitely not going to get you into the room where it happens.

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