UX IRL Ep. 30: UX Horror Stories (Halloween)

Hello! Here are our show notes for episode 30 of UX IRL: UX Horror Stories (Halloween). We hit the highlights in this article, but get the full context by listening to the episode:

In this episode, we talk about our childhood fears, what we were scared of in UX starting out, UX trends that frighten us, and UX horror stories. Talk to us on the zeroheight Slack community! (bit.ly/zheroes-signup), comment below or reply on Twitter @uxinreallife or Instagram @ux.inreallife.

What we were scared of as kids

Here is a list of things we were scared of as kids and have mostly grown out of those fears… mostly.

Mary Fran (all the things)

• Butterflies
• Clowns
• Hypnosis
• Throwing up
• Needles
• Horror stories, movies, books, games
• Super Mario World Haunted House (specifically the music)
• Mother brain’s howl from Super Metroid

Michelle

• Moths
• Escalators
• Dead birds
• The Soundtrack to 2001: a Space Odyssey

What we were scared of in UX (starting out)

Mary Fran initially struggled with speaking in front of people, whether that was presenting designs or readouts, running workshops, usability tests, or user interviews. Her ADHD and anxiety make her more prone to stumbling over words and jumping around when talking through something. Finding ways to practice, outline, and prepare regularly helped her become more confident in speaking in front of others, staying calm, and pivoting when needed. Like most, she also experienced her fair share of imposter syndrome. Even as a more seasoned designer, she still has moments like this, though she feels better equipped to handle it.

Michelle went to grad school for UX and learned everything she needed to know for UX. However, being unable to do things the same way each time because of real-world variables that changed from project to project made it harder to feel confident in whatever approach she took. The more you get comfortable adjusting things based on those variables, the easier it becomes to recognize patterns and feel sure in whatever direction you choose.

As newbies, both Michelle and Mary Fran were nervous about properly articulating and defending their UX and design decisions and educating clients and stakeholders.

UX IRL Takeaway: Overcoming fears takes time, practice, and finding what works for you. The more experience you get, the more comfortable and confident you’ll become in your journey as a UX’er.

What UX trends we’re scared of

For Mary Fran, UX being seen as “production” designers is big. By that, she’s referring to when requirements are passed down with the expectation that UXers go off and design it instead of being a crucial part of the discovery process. She’s witnessed this happen in very siloed environments where UX gets left out of the loop.

This also ties into a fear of UX not being a part of education or discussion around Agile and Scrum training, as this reinforces UX not being a crucial part of the conversation or a role that can fulfill that user-centered approach.

Standardized UX assessments and tests scare both Mary Fran and Michelle. UX requires so much analysis and critical thinking trying to simplify it to a multiple-choice question isn’t indicative of someone’s ability to do the job. Listen to our episode on UX Assessments for more on why we’re worried about this trend.

Michelle is concerned about the number of companies still struggling to understand the value of design and to fight for a seat at the table — especially hearing questions at conferences and webinars still about what happens when these scenarios occur. Is it the UX Manager’s job to build that bridge and create a seat at the table, or should they leave and find a company that does appreciate UX? There’s no correct answer, but it’s worrisome that we still have to fight this fight.

One of Michelle’s biggest fears is going into high fidelity too soon, especially when design tools make it so easy to get there faster. This makes it difficult to focus on the holistic experience first. Sometimes she wonders if we’d be better off if it weren’t so easy to create a quick high-fidelity mock.

UX Horror Story #1: Upsell this Broken Experience!

Mary Fran was on a project where the task handed to the team was to upsell a product in conjunction with another project. While there was value in using the two products together, the onboarding experience was incredibly difficult: think 20+ steps and three sets of credentials. She put together a journey map in Miro that one developer described as “bleeding” because there were so many red annotations indicating where things fell apart.

Despite presenting a solid case of what not solving this onboarding experience first would cost us financially, not to mention the support of the engineering team and her design manager, leadership didn’t budge. She tried to make the best of the situation and looked at rolling off the project.

UX IRL Takeaway: If you don’t feel confident in your team’s direction, do your best to make your voice heard. Often, putting things in dollars and cents helps, but when that doesn’t work, do what you can to take care of yourself. If you can’t remove yourself from the project, take solace that you stood your ground (and maybe also start looking for a new job).

UX Horror Story #2: When Workshop Participants Don’t Want to Participate

Michelle facilitated a consulting workshop to build empathy and understanding around design systems with PMs, design, and engineering. However, engineering didn’t want to participate, saying they had a process and things were working well, saying that they didn’t think they could contribute. Michelle joined their breakout group to help coach them and see if she could get them to open up, and she ended up scribing for them. To make it all the more difficult, no one was sharing their camera except Michelle, so that she couldn’t read their reactions. While they still got enough information from other participants, having a subset dig their heels into the ground was frustrating. The silver lining was that it was consulting, so she got to walk away from it and not worry about dealing with that environment daily.

UX IRL Takeaway: No matter how much you prepare for a workshop, you never know what will happen, and be ready to roll with whatever comes your way. Do your best to stay calm and focus on what you can do to get some information.

UX Horror Story #3: Usability Test Frustration

Mary Fran conducted a usability test where, after a series of technical difficulties getting the user connected and able to share their screen, they misunderstood the purpose of the call and got frustrated. They thought they were asked to talk through their process again (after doing so in a previous interview) and then became more irritated at being asked to know how to use something new they’d never tried before. Mary Fran took a breath (despite internal panic), stayed calm, and reiterated that the expectation wasn’t for them to know how but to test the design and experience to see if it was intuitive enough to figure out without explicit instruction. If they couldn’t figure it out, she explained that meant she needed to rework some things, which would be helpful information. Thankfully that resonated, and they could get through the usability test without additional incidents!

UX IRL Takeaway: If things go sideways and someone becomes frustrated, breathe and do your best to remain calm. Try to reiterate and reset expectations to ensure they know they aren’t being tested.

UX Horror Story #4: Tool Transition Terror

Michelle has a good amount of experience sunsetting and transitioning cloud-based tools. This means exporting copies of files somewhere organized. If you’ve been using it for 2–3 years even, you likely have a ton of files, and the exporting methods weren’t always reliable, so there was an additional need to check that process. It’s tedious, and no one wants to do it. Michelle planned and successfully executed that process in 3 weeks in her first experience sunsetting a tool by dedicated sprint time and divvying up the work with designers, but it was very stressful.

UX IRL Takeaway: If you need to do it, definitely have a plan, give yourself as much runway as possible (definitely more than three weeks), and hire a contractor to help.

We’d love to hear from you!

What are some of your UX horror stories? Comment below or reach out to us on the zeroheight Slack community! (bit.ly/zheroes-signup)