{"id":121,"date":"2012-10-16T19:59:20","date_gmt":"2012-10-16T19:59:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/grapnel.net\/blog\/?p=121"},"modified":"2012-10-16T19:59:20","modified_gmt":"2012-10-16T19:59:20","slug":"ux-is-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/grapnel.net\/blog\/ux-is-not\/","title":{"rendered":"UX is NOT…"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is repost of an article by Whitney Hess, one of the pioneers of the UX movement<\/em><\/p>\n

When I tell people that I am a user experience designer, I usually get a blank stare. I try to follow it up quickly by saying that I make stuff easy and pleasurable to use. That\u2019s the repeatable one-liner, but it\u2019s a gross oversimplification and isn\u2019t doing me any favors.<\/p>\n

The term \u201cuser experience\u201d or UX has been getting a lot of play, but many businesses are confused about what it actually is and how crucial it is to their success.<\/p>\n

I asked some of the most influential and widely respected practitioners in UX what they consider to be the biggest misperceptions of what we do. The result is a top 10 list to debunk the myths. Read it, learn it, live it.<\/p>\n

User experience design is NOT\u2026<\/p>\n

1. \u2026user interface design<\/h2>\n

It\u2019s not uncommon to confuse \u201cuser experience\u201d with \u201cuser interface\u201d \u2014 after all it\u2019s a big part of what users interact with while experiencing digital products and services. But the UI is just one piece of the puzzle.<\/p>\n

\u201cInterface is a component of user experience, but there\u2019s much more,\u201d says\u00a0Peter Merholz<\/a>, founding partner and president of\u00a0Adaptive Path<\/a>.\u00a0Christian Crumlish<\/a>, curator of the\u00a0Yahoo! Design Pattern Library<\/a>, explains that design \u201cisn\u2019t about cosmetics, pixel-pushing, and button placement. It\u2019s holistic and it\u2019s everyone\u2019s concern, not just the realm of \u2018artistic\u2019 types.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dan Saffer<\/a>, founder and principal at\u00a0Kicker Studio<\/a>, agrees that it\u2019s common for design to be mistaken for being solely about decoration or styling. \u201cI\u2019ve had clients tell me not to worry about what their strategy is,\u201d he says, \u201cbecause why would a designer care about that? UX is more than just skin deep.\u201d<\/p>\n

2. \u2026a step in the process<\/h2>\n

It is the process. In order to create a great experience for your users, not just design something that we\u2019d like to use, we need to keep listening and iterating. It doesn\u2019t have to be a rigid process, but it does need to exist.<\/p>\n

\u201cUser experience design isn\u2019t a checkbox,\u201d says\u00a0Liz Danzico<\/a>, an independent user experience consultant and chairperson of the new\u00a0MFA in Interaction Design<\/a>\u00a0program at the\u00a0School of Visual Arts<\/a>. \u201cYou don\u2019t do it and then move on. It needs to be integrated into everything you do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dan Brown<\/a>, co-founder and principal at\u00a0EightShapes<\/a>\u00a0notes, \u201cMost [clients] expect experience design to be a discrete activity, solving all their problems with a single functional specification or a single research study. It must be an ongoing effort, a process of continually learning about users, responding to their behaviors, and evolving the product or service.\u201d<\/p>\n

3. \u2026about technology<\/h2>\n

User experience isn\u2019t even about technology, says\u00a0Mario Bourque<\/a>, manager of information architecture and content management at\u00a0Trapeze Group<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s about how we live. It\u2019s about everything we do; it surrounds us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"faucet\"Like a painter uses paint to communicate concepts and emotions, user experience designers use technology to help people accomplish their goals. But the primary objective is to help people, not to make great technology.<\/p>\n

\u201cUser experience design is not limited to the confines of the computer. It doesn\u2019t even need a screen,\u201d argues\u00a0Bill DeRouchey<\/a>, director of interaction design at\u00a0Ziba Design<\/a>. \u201cUser experience is any interaction with any product, any artifact, any system.\u201d<\/p>\n

Really, a user experience designer could help to improve a person\u2019s experience with just about anything \u2014 a doorknob, a faucet, a shopping cart. We just don\u2019t typically refer to the people using those things as \u201cusers,\u201d but they are.<\/p>\n

4. \u2026just about usability<\/h2>\n

\u201cPeople often think that [UX design] is a way to make products that suck into products that don\u2019t suck by dedicating resources to the product\u2019s design,\u201d says\u00a0Chris Fahey<\/a>, founding partner and principal of\u00a0Behavior<\/a>. Making stuff easy and intuitive is far from our only goal. In order to get people to change their behavior, we need to create stuff they want to use, too.<\/p>\n

David Malouf<\/a>, professor of interaction design at\u00a0Savannah College of Art & Design<\/a>, explains that \u201cwhile usability is important, its focus on efficiency and effectiveness seems to blur the other important factors in UX, which include learnability and visceral and behavioral emotional responses to the products and services we use.\u201d Not everything has to be dead simple if it can be easily learned, and it\u2019s critical that the thing be appealing or people might never interact with it in the first place.<\/p>\n

\u201cUsability is not a synecdoche for UX,\u201d asserts\u00a0Will Evans<\/a>, principal user experience architect at\u00a0Semantic Foundry<\/a>. He points to Peter Morville\u2019s\u00a0UX honeycomb<\/a>, which in addition to usable, recognizes useful, desirable, accessible, credible, findable, and ultimately valuable as the essential facets of user experience.<\/p>\n

5. \u2026just about the user<\/h2>\n

\"consumer\"Russ Unger<\/a>, experience design strategist, likes to say that the biggest misconception of UX design is the \u201cU.\u201d \u201cThere are a set of business objectives that are needing to be met\u2014and we\u2019re designing to that, as well,\u201d he explains. \u201cWe just can\u2019t always do what is best for the users. We have to try to make sure that we are presenting an overall experience that can meet as many goals and needs as possible for the business and the users.\u201d<\/p>\n

As user experience designers we have to find the sweet spot between the user\u2019s needs and the business goals, and furthermore ensure that the design is on brand.<\/p>\n

6. \u2026expensive<\/h2>\n

Every project requires a custom-tailored approach based on the business\u2019s available resources, capabilities, timeline, and budget, and a whole slew of real-world constraints. But that doesn\u2019t always mean that it needs to be costly or take forever.<\/p>\n

Steve Baty<\/a>, principal and user experience strategist at\u00a0Meld Consulting<\/a>, combats the fallacy that UX design adds too much time to a project. \u201cSometimes a fully-fledged, formal UCD process may not be the best thing to try first time,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s extremely important \u2013 and totally possible no matter where you\u2019re working or when you arrive on a project \u2013 to make small improvements to both the project and the product by introducing some user experience design techniques.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople cling to things like personas, user research, drawing comics, etc.,\u201d notes Saffer. \u201cIn reality the best designers have a toolbox of options, picking and choosing methods for each project what makes sense for that particular project.\u201d<\/p>\n

7. \u2026easy<\/h2>\n

Just because we know how to conduct some cool and useful activities and you know your business really well doesn\u2019t mean that this whole process is a breeze. And cutting corners on some important steps is a recipe for disaster.<\/p>\n

Saffer maintains that a misconception \u201cas common among designers as it is among clients, is that there is one secret method that will solve all their design problems.\u201d<\/p>\n

A trap that a lot of companies fall into is in thinking that they are their own end users.\u00a0Erin Malone<\/a>, principal atTangible UX<\/a>, finds that both product managers and programmers believe they will create the experience as they build it. \u201cUX designers are caught in the middle trying to speak the business language and the developer language to justify why we need to do our jobs and why it\u2019s important to success.\u201d<\/p>\n

If you make assumptions about the people you expect to use your product or service \u2014 who they are, how they behave, what makes them tick \u2014 you\u2019ll probably always be wrong. But take the time to get to know them, and hire the appropriate person to facilitate the process, and you can ensure you\u2019ll get it right.<\/p>\n

8. \u2026the role of one person or department<\/h2>\n

\"workspace\"User experience designers are liaisons, not subject matter experts, doctors or any type of magical beings. We don\u2019t have a set of best practices that we can robotically implement, nor do we have all of the answers. Our greatest skill is that we know how to listen. While we can help evangelize the most effective process within your organization, it\u2019s ultimately up to all members of the business to make it a success.<\/p>\n

\u201cUser experience isn\u2019t just the responsibility of a department or a person,\u201d says\u00a0Livia Labate<\/a>, principal of information architecture and user experience at\u00a0Comcast Interactive Media<\/a>. \u201cThat compartmentalist view of UX is evidence that it is not part of the organizational culture and hints to teams not having a common goal or vision for the experience they should deliver collectively.\u201d<\/p>\n

Malone highlights the fact that there are many different breeds of practitioners that fall within the user experience umbrella. \u201cWe, as an industry, have not done a good job of separating out specialties and roles with enough unique language so that clients and businesses get that they need to hire (on staff or consultant) different types of people at different points in a project lifecycle.\u201d<\/p>\n

9. \u2026a single discipline<\/h2>\n

The truth is that we\u2019re all still very new at this.\u00a0Louis Rosenfeld<\/a>, publisher at\u00a0Rosenfeld Media<\/a>, publishing books on user experience design, and co-author of the seminal 2002 book\u00a0Information Architecture for the World Wide Web<\/a>\u00a0argues that user experience may not yet even be a discipline. \u201cIt may not even be a community just yet,\u201d he asserts. \u201cAt best, it\u2019s a common awareness, a thread that ties together people from different disciplines who care about good design, and who realize that today\u2019s increasingly complex design challenges require the synthesis of different varieties of design expertise.\u201d<\/p>\n

We have proliferation of nebulous titles: information architect, user experience architect, interaction designer, usability engineer, design analyst, and on and on. And they don\u2019t mean the same thing to every person or company.<\/p>\n

Different people specialize in different parts of the process. Some UX practitioners focus on a specific technique, like\u00a0Indi Young<\/a>\u00a0and mental models, or a single challenge, like\u00a0Luke Wroblewski<\/a>\u00a0and web forms, or a focused activity, like\u00a0Steve Krug<\/a>\u00a0and usability testing. Just like you wouldn\u2019t go to a cardiologist to heal your broken foot, don\u2019t expect any professional in the realm of user experience to accomplish everything you need.<\/p>\n

10. \u2026a choice<\/h2>\n

For those of you who think you don\u2019t really need a user experience designer, keep this in mind: \u201cNobody wants to believe that what they are offering is of poor-quality or deficient,\u201d says Kaleem Khan, an independent UX consultant, \u201cbecause nobody sets out to achieve a bad design as a goal. It\u2019s always a risk. Bad designs and bad experiences happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jared Spool<\/a>, founding principal and CEO at\u00a0User Interface Engineering<\/a>\u00a0(UIE), the world\u2019s largest usability research firm, has done extensive investigation on the qualities of the satisfied and successful product teams. Simply put, the most common flaw he has found is that companies think \u201cgood experience design is an add-on, not a base requirement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Josh Porter<\/a>, formerly of UIE and now principal at\u00a0Bokardo Design<\/a>, echoes Spool when he says, \u201cThe biggest misconception is that [companies] have a choice to invest in their user\u2019s experience. To survive, they don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are plenty of amazing practitioners who can help right in your local area. Check your local chapter of theInformation Architecture Institute<\/a>\u00a0(IAI), the\u00a0Interaction Design Association<\/a>\u00a0(IxDA), or the\u00a0Usability Professionals Association<\/a>\u00a0(UPA), or just find someone on LinkedIn.<\/p>\n

Looking forward<\/h2>\n

\"2009\"2009 is going to be a year of scaling back, but let it also be a call for pragmatism. It\u2019s time to adopt more streamlined, smart, progressive and effective practices. We\u2019ve reached a level of technological maturity where functional just isn\u2019t good enough.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s how we engage people and the respect and value we provide to them that will separate the wheat from the chaff. Which side will you be on?<\/p>\n\r\n\t

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