Cassandra’s Curse in the UX World
In ancient Greek mythology, Apollo, God of poetry and prophecy, falls in love with the beautiful Cassandra, daughter of the king and queen of Troy. He woos her by giving her a rare and treasured gift — the ability to see the future — and, in response, she agrees to be his consort. But when she later betrays him and breaks that vow, a furious Apollo curses her with a kiss, breathing words into her mouth that forever take away her powers of persuasion. From that day forward, she is doomed to scream into the void. Though Cassandra foresees the coming destruction of Troy — she is unable to prevent the tragedy because no one heeds her warning.
The story of Cassandra is traditionally taken as a parable about what happens when valid warnings are ignored.
In the past few months, I have considered this mythical tale of Apollo and Cassandra as a parable for User Experience design. It has raised an important question: Who really is cursed? Cassandra, or the people of Troy who have an oracle, but do not believe her?
In our context, UX designers and researchers can be seen as the Cassandra, who often see the future, but are ignored by the product team or management. Designers and researchers collect data from user testing and interviews, but many times, we fail to convince the product team or management about the warnings we can foresee.
You could argue this conflict in two ways:
The product team or management could do a better job listening to their Cassandra.
Or, Cassandra could try to tell her story more convincingly, without losing her sanity.
But really, why should anyone believe Cassandra? As the old saying goes, seeing is believing.
A UX researcher extracts data points from user testing and interviews to build a hypothesis, but many times, they just discuss these points with the product team and management. An excellent solution to getting their predictions heard and understood is prototyping, testing, and iterating.
If a UX team creates low-fidelity, rapid prototypes for their various hypothesis, then more people could see and understand the repercussions of the collected data, and even more evidence could be obtained in an iterative way.
In ancient Greece, Cassandra could have done the same thing. Instead of talking about her visions, she could have built a prototype — a little wooden horse with little wooden people in it to make the Trojans believe that such a fate could truly befall them.
Cassandra would be heard and believed by all if only she had more evidence to prove the validity of her warning with a prototype.
This way, perhaps UX teams can dispel Apollo’s curse.
