The Challenge, and the Opportunity

“I would love to have more UX capability in my team, but it’s difficult to get an organisational focus on it.”

“I’ve been talking with senior leadership about UX focused resources, but haven’t had any traction yet.”

“I wish we could complete more UX activities up front rather than in tandem with development, but we’re provided no time for this.”

These were just three of many comments made, from developer through to middle management level, as I discussed my upcoming placement within the organisation focusing on User Experience Design — a practice rarely followed throughout the organisation but, clearly, oft desired.

Let me back up a little bit and explain the opportunity afforded to me.

I currently work for a medium sized yet conservative organisation of approximately 8000 staff. Its primary business is not in IT, but its IT spend in enabling its core business is significant. I’m both studying and working in Information Technology; rather than a fixed role or team that I work with, my job entails the undertaking of ‘placements’ performing various roles of interest to me. Apart from the obvious advantages of actually working in a number of areas of my own choosing throughout a relatively short period of my career, this has the additional benefit of rendering me, as a resource, entirely free to any department I work in (at least in monetary terms). So when I approached the manager of an area producing small internal apps and proposed that I join them and focus on User Experience Design, she was more than happy to oblige.

I’m passionate about UX; I believe design permeates everything we do. I see poor experiences all around me, and nowhere more so than at my place of employment. As an organisation we’re in a period of serious and ongoing maturation across the board. There are pockets of progressive thinkers trying to move development practices forward to a more agile, customer-focused means of operation, and the future looks bright — but progress in this area is slow.

Once I had gained agreement that I could undertake this role, I began talking with management of the various teams and departments that I believed would have a vested interest in the practice. I was pleased to find that they were generally more than receptive to it — in fact, they actually had been attempting to instill it more in their own areas, albeit without much success.

To my mind, this begged questions — did their own line of management not trust their ability to make recommendations on how their teams should be operating? Did they lack the ability or resources to construct a decent business case? Or was it just too easy to get bogged down in the day-to-day; were their stated desires simply not strong enough to really dedicate to beginning that long and difficult process of adjusting the course of the ship?

These middle managers — the ones with a modicum of power, and access to those with more — were sitting there crying out for change, when they were the very ones that were able to effect it. A post on our internal social network mentioning my upcoming role led to a 45 minute impromptu conversation with the head of our internal knowledge-management functions on the need for a set of user interface standards across the organisation. The only reason it finished at that point was that we’d gone well past close of business and the poor man had to get home to his family.

The more I read, and pondered, and talked — the more I believed that there was significant potential to upgrade our processes and thinking to a level where User Experience Design was simply a part of what we did. The desire was there, the recognition was there, but no one was ready to stand up and make it happen. All it required was someone to dedicate to doing it.

So I decided to be that person.

I’m excited for this placement — although I have to say I’m a bit scared too. Through all of this, I have no formal (or even informal) qualifications in the field. But I do have passion, and a tendency of loitering in the pockets of the internet where thought leaders in the field reside. I think that’s enough; it’s certainly enough for me to give it a try.

Heck, in this battle, my naivety could actually be my strongest ally.