Specialisation in UX: Joining the systems stream
Thoughts from a worker ant in the in the frantic internal systems UX colony
By Lizzy Steenkamp
Working on a big system calls to mind a time lapse series of an animal carcass being cleared by ants. The sun rises and sets a few times in the background, while the fur rustles and leaves twitch, but the animal is shrinking very slowly. The frantic insectoid movements in the foreground are almost absurd in comparison; to passers-by, progress is almost imperceptible. Those involved directly, however, are frantically tripping over obstacles, touching feelers every now and then only to find out how they should redirect. Systems UX is a job for a very specific kind of ant.
As your feeds are likely informing you, UX and its family of related disciplines is expanding into a great variety of fields and products. From UX in architecture and event-based marketing experiences, to our more familiar territories of apps and e-commerce, new opportunities for expertise and specialisation arise. I came to UX from a previous role that centred on solution analysis and design, and my exposure to UX was mostly in the context of e-learning applications. Having never focussed entirely on UX, I was a little unsure whether such a fixed approach would satisfy my interest in complex architectural challenges. I soon learned that because UX is so multidisciplinary, the product and organisational context have a great impact on your role as the UX practitioner.
UX as a discipline in South Africa is now in the phase where it has matured enough for practitioners to specialise in areas that we find the most interesting and satisfying. The projects that you find most rewarding can guide your decisions around the kind of product you want to work on, whether that be mobile applications, e-commerce, message-bearing static sites, consumer-centered web applications, or community building. The company or client also has a big impact on your areas of focus. For example, whereas some organisations live for user data and research, there are companies who prefer to prescribe and disrupt. These product designers will take an anti-analytics stance, and even flee from the most modest of focus groups.
For the uninitiated, “systems” is a relatively broad term that is applied with some specificity in South African organisational contexts. The “systems” team in an organisation is usually a support function. If we were more consumer-facing, we would be more likely to think of our system and its modules as products. However, our users are mostly inside the organisation, so we often don’t have need of the word, or the kind of thinking that a product requires. An internal system is unitary and pervasive; it isn’t just used, but becomes its users, and is inextricably connected with the reality that feeds it. With my background in literature, my passion is for words, stories and information; I love making things make sense. This is why I have found my niche in systems UX, the area of UX specialisation into which I can give you a glimpse.
What is a systems UX specialist?
The word “designer” is often conspicuously absent from systems UX job specs. This is likely because the advertiser wants to avoid connotations of unique, beautiful experiences. Although the aim in systems UX is still to drive behavior and champion the user, those aspects of UX that focus on emotion, imagination and inspiration are much less prominent. A systems UI is generally very busy; it’s filled with columns of data and entry fields. Your major visual design priority is to reduce the noise. As a generally stoic minimalist who enjoys arranging my pencils and making lists, I find that this role suits my identity as an A-type creative. I would describe my design style as ascetic, which is perfect for someone working on a big system. As long as the UI is unambiguous and consistent, it may keep the same skin for many years.
Another reason for this minimalism is that an enormous, monolithic or multifaceted system is not easily overhauled. A design revolution is not only technically problematic but poses challenges for effective rollout and change management. Your key priority with the UI is to be timeless and minimalist — designing an absence of design. The greater part of the work as a systems UX specialist thus lies firmly in the first four of Jesse James Garrett’s five s’s of UX — strategy, scope, structure, and skeleton. The more aesthetically inspired UX designer will likely find this work less rewarding. The role is more suited to those who are process-oriented and passionate about understanding and simplifying complex problems.
Becoming the flexpert
One of the most interesting aspects of working as an internal systems UX specialist is the duration of the path you walk with users. As late capitalism has turned us all into little nuggets of expertise in very specialised in job roles, in most contexts we find that very few people have sight of both the details and the big picture in an organisation. The UX specialist will build the system that enables both minute operational details while still guiding behaviours, data flows and decisions toward bigger organisational goals. This asks of me to compare and connect the details of the products, people and functions that are otherwise siloed as different roles within different teams.
This level of immersion creates some additional responsibilities. My familiarity with user needs, processes and responsibilities, as well as my knowledge of exceptions and edge cases, also requires that I play a more central role in testing new releases. At the very least, I need to be able to construct robust user stories and testing scenarios that reflect the level of complexity I engaged during the design process. For these reasons, it is also important to maintain documentation of systems concepts, conventions and processes for future reference. Because the system is central to the everyday operation of the business, I often need to postpone bigger design projects to create space for smaller, reactive interim builds that solve a problem. Luckily, problem-solving energises me.
Balancing people, products and functions
One of the biggest challenges in designing a large, complex system is optimising the information architecture and navigation. The levels of organisation span categories of various users, functions and products. No UX designer wants to force users to jump between pages and have eight browser tabs open for their daily tasks, so there is always a temptation to design the system around job roles where they overlap with functions (such as finance). Unfortunately, designing for specialist roles disadvantages those users in generalist roles, such as product managers, as they will have to dip into respective functions separately. I can’t justify multiple dashboards and navigation structures for all the various needs of different users, and this problem is compounded by the fact that job roles continually change and specialise further. The future may also hold a rapid expansion of the product portfolio or the internalisation of currently outsourced functions. Information architecture and navigation design thus becomes a game of trying to understand and predict the company’s short and long-term strategy and priorities, and how this translates into systems objectives.
Bringing the world into the screen
In the context of systems UX, the world outside the screen looms even larger than usual. The processes I build usually already exist in physical reality, with all its complexities and imperfections. Some users have already implemented some creative solutions — some more effective than others — to their problems, and it’s not my goal or desire to dismantle their work. A lot of thinking therefore goes into defining the role of the system, and its place in these users’ lives.
“Users are often already experts in the processes and concepts I am using, with a highly specialised — if informal — vocabulary and information architecture of their own.”
What I design may duplicate, displace, enhance, optimise, enable, or manipulate their own ways of doing things. A top priority during user research becomes determining what level of prescription or description my design should take — do I design this for how they do things, or for how they should be doing things? How much can I replicate their current, physical system, and how much can I manipulate and improve upon it? What are they doing better than the system will be able to? What will prevent these users from adopting the system, and how can I make it easier for them?
The physical world also insists on its importance in the risks tied to user or design errors in the system. In circumstances where ambiguity, misclicks, miscategorisations or general opacity can cost a company millions, it’s worth deliberating UX for months. Users are often already experts in the processes and concepts I am using, with a highly specialised — if informal — vocabulary and information architecture of their own. The definitions of “production” or “delivered” used in head office could be surprisingly different to those used in the warehouse. This makes user research and testing all the more important. As the system exists in an abstract, separate world — especially for those users whose jobs are very physical — it’s important to reiterate the impact of actions on screen. A systems UI will therefore often require more robust user permissions structures, and quite a few dialogues that offer the opportunity to confirm, abort or reverse action.
Appreciating iteration
A final element that is characteristic of systems UX is the iterative nature of it. Due to the vast number of variables that can impact upon the way the system works, the system will never be complete. Every tweak in the network of connections reverberates a wealth of implications that need to be accommodated and resolved. The interconnection of this network with various nodes in reality also means that each release of a new feature may alter the way the physical world operates in unexpected ways, thus creating a need to alter the system again to ensure optimal synergy. In short, systems UX thus also requires a measure of resilience, which is a quality I am developing here, but also finding useful in other areas of my life.
Is it right for me?
Although systems UX remains at heart a kind of UX, the emphasis of the role is specialised in the direction of systems thinking. You need to be ready to de-prioritise aesthetic and emotive impact to make way for process, data and consistency, and reconcile yourself to the possibility of a prescriptive approach to user behavior. This role is perfect for those who enjoy working out delicate balances between user needs and process optimisation, and the constant need to reevaluate and reiterate toward the solution for the moment.
