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Confessions of a UX Designer
Breaking Bad with UX Design
I’m about to commit a cardinal sin against the gods of UX in penning this article. My design soul will likely suffer eternal damnation. And, like Judas Iscariot, I’ll be forever haunted by the sound of thirty pieces of silver rattling about in my pocket. Forgive me father, for I am about to sin…and I have sinned.
After more than a decade of projects gone afoul, designs that never made it to development, concepts that should have never made it beyond being a concept and the snail’s pace of many projects I have worked on, this article is long overdue. I’d like to be able to write an article placing the blame somewhere other than the UX teams I have worked with. But, that wouldn’t be honest or true. It wouldn’t be a confession. Often times, it has been my team or myself to blame for failed projects or projects that could have yielded better results.
At the outset, I must state there is a lot I like and love about UX and design in general. But, there is also a lot that gets under my skin. UX can be a great solution to the problems an organization faces with their products in the market. But, UX can also be part of the problem. I have often become part of the problem.
In life, I have generally found solutions do not come without cost. You often solve one problem and create another. I have seen the same thing happen with UX design in organizations. We solve a lot of problems when introduced to an organization, but often create more via our very existence.
So, I’m “breaking bad” with UX. Specifically, I’m outlining the mistakes I have made and have seen teams make — mistakes that inhibit the final product and user’s experience. In parallel, I am pushing against some of the dogmatic philosophies inherent in our profession. This article is where I see UX go awry. It’s also a short list of things that irk me about the profession. This is an article about flouting the maxims, thinking for yourself and sometimes, just sometimes, going against the crowd’s conventional thinking.
Paradoxically, these are all transgressions I have committed in my own past. My sins. These are the confessions of a UX designer.
