UX IRL Ep. 39: We go on a rant
Hello! Here are our show notes for episode 39 of UX IRL: We go on a rant! We hit the highlights in this article, but get the full context by listening to the episode:
We’re going on a rant! We have a few things that annoy us about work, outside work, and terrible UX we’ve encountered. Here’s what’s been getting under our skin lately–does it resonate with you? What’s been bugging you lately? We’d love to hear, and sharing with us can be cathartic. Talk to us on the zeroheight Slack community! (bit.ly/zheroes-signup), comment below or reply on Twitter @uxinreallife or Instagram @ux.inreallife.
Work rant: Vision work
Mary Fran’s gripe is with “vision” work. Vision work can mean how people envision their product in the next year, 5–10 years, or even as a general North Star to work toward. Companies can use the work to validate concepts, pitch ideas, and help articulate the unknown.
While the work can be interesting, it can be challenging because you’re creating something that doesn’t yet exist. When something is unknown, it’s super important to figure out a good narrative and the outcomes of the vision. Sometimes stakeholders can have lofty ideas and casually say, “Design can make this happen.” and then fail to provide additional guidance. But to design something well, designers need to ground the lofty ideas into some semblance of reality, or it won’t make sense.
There are also moments when the design team can come up with something great, but stakeholders quickly dismiss it and send it back to the drawing board as if it’s not a lot of effort to create another new idea.
UX IRL Takeaway: If you’re doing vision work, we recommend clarifying the expectations for the effort. It helps to identify the narrative you’ll use to help make the vision resonate.
Work rant: Mansplaining/Hepeating
Michelle gets irritated by “hepeating,” which is when a woman says something or has an idea, and then a man says the same idea as if it’s his idea. This has happened to her a few times. When it happens, it’s a little jarring, “Did this really just happen?” She and her coworkers would chat about it over Slack during the meeting, but she doesn’t think that was the right approach.
Instead, the best solution is to address it, “Hey, you know, I just said that.” At the same time, she wishes her co-workers had stepped in to say, “Yeah, like what Michelle just said.” This support is called “amplifying.” It can be tough to speak up because we often second-guess ourselves and manage to talk ourselves out of mentioning anything.
UX IRL Takeaway: When you can, amplify your coworkers and call actions like these out when it happens.
Non-work rant: Better IA for online ordering
Mary Fran loves to order from one place for breakfast and brunch meals, but she has to navigate their site through three levels just to order. They organize items into categories you wouldn’t normally expect to find them in (e.g., “chicken salad” is under “pantry”). The order of these categories is also odd. Pantry items are also at the top instead of typical breakfast food, which people are more likely to order.
We realize that many of these places are small businesses, and their priority is to stay in business, especially with the impact of the pandemic. And even with some good tools, companies can vary in how they provide information (e.g., some don’t provide descriptions, and others don’t include images).
UX IRL Takeaway: If you want to help a local business, consider bartering your IA/UX services in exchange for a meal or goods.
Non-work rant: Conference tote bags
While Michelle loves getting conference tote bags, the issue is that they’re not the best quality. She learned the hard way that conference tote bags shrink in the wash. They come out looking all wrinkly and sad, and their handles look like sorry bacon. An article mentions that you must use a cotton tote bag 20,000 times to compensate for the effort it took to make it. So maybe we need to stop handing out tote bags or at least hand out better ones.
UX IRL Takeaway: Probably don’t wash your tote bags. Don’t stick them in the dryer!
Work rant: No meeting agenda
We share this rant about meetings with no agenda!
Mary Fran recalls when an exec called a 3-hour meeting with several people. He started the session with, “How do we want to spend our time today?” She was floored because she had committed three hours of her day to something that had no agenda, and then the onus was on everyone at the last minute to figure out what to do with the time.
It dumbfounds us when people call a meeting for an hour with no agenda or goal for the meeting. It’s a waste of time. Michelle feels it’s OK if they want to waste their own time, but it’s definitely not OK to waste everyone else’s time. We’re all really busy.
From a business perspective, it’s also a waste of money. For example, if ten people are paid $100/hr in a meeting, it’s $1000/hr. So for a 3-hour no-agenda meeting, that’s $3K spent with little to show.
Some of Michelle’s friends worked on teams where it was an accepted practice to decline a meeting if there was no agenda. It feels gutsy to do so and may not be the best approach. At the very least, you can contact the meeting host and ask them to add an agenda.
UX IRL Takeaway: If you’re hosting a meeting, ensure there’s an agenda, goals, and a plan.
Bad UX at work: Too many tools
Michelle’s annoyed when there are too many tools to use. It’s not so much a problem where she is now, but it has been in the past. Sometimes, she’ll use the available mediocre tool to avoid introducing a new tool. But it can be painful to make those compromises, especially if you’re doing this for several tools.
At Citrix, we did an entire workshop on communication tools with the design org. We used it to define guidelines for our communication culture and which tool worked best for our needs.
Michelle would love to have one tool to rule them all. Mary Fran would love it if Airtable and Notion merged to form one amazing tool. Figma, if you’re listening, she’d also like Figma files and Figjam files to combine so that she can Figjam in her Figma files.
UX IRL Takeaway: Try your best to make existing tools work, but if they complicate things more than a tool you’d rather use, consider bringing in the tool that meets your needs.
Bad UX at work: Zoom
Mary Fran started using Zoom again and realized how frustrating the UX was to turn on captioning. She’s hearing impaired and relies on captioning to ensure what she’s hearing is accurate, especially when talking to users. The captions are set at the user level for all other video conference tools. So anyone on the call can turn on captioning if they desire.
However, with Zoom, the owner of the meeting has to turn on captioning. And when it’s enabled, everyone learns that it’s available. To use captioning, Mary Fran has to ask the meeting owner to enable it. Even if it’s not a big deal, it feels like a lot to reach out and ask them in advance to do that. If you don’t have a supportive team, you might not feel comfortable asking, or you don’t want them to know about your impairment. So this can impact how you engage in a meeting or your performance.
If you’re in the latter situation, you could ask HR for help. They can ensure access to the tools you need while maintaining confidentiality. For example, they can ask the team to adjust their Zoom settings to allow for captioning and say it’ll help the team.
Mary Fran even reached out to Zoom’s support for help. They looked into it and let her know that it’s something that’s coming, but they’re not sure when! It’s frustrating because we definitely feel like this is table stakes! As an alternative, Mary Fran’s using Web Captioner, a free tool that displays captions by listening to your computer audio.
UX IRL Takeaway: Ideally, tools should work the way you need them to. They shouldn’t put you in an awkward position. Zoom, get it together, and fix yourself!
We’d love to hear from you!
If you have something to rant about or can commiserate with us, say “hi” to us here or on LinkedIn. We’d love to hear what’s on your mind and what’s been getting on your nerves lately.
