Where did we go wrong?
The implicit promise of UX for many of us was a burgeoning philosophy of management by inquiry and insight, in which new creative explorations would lead to new questions about human behavior, which in turn would drive the definition of new product and value opportunities. The culture of UX also seemed to necessitate a degree of respect, compassion, and simple humility toward the people who use what we make, and the ways in which their lives and experiences may shape their behavior to look very different from our own. More exposure to this kind of thinking, the theory went, would lead to more demand for it, and the rising tide of human-centered design would pave the way for human-centered enterprises. That, to put it bluntly, did not happen. Instead of challenging teams to stretch their thinking to address deeper and subtler user needs, product design practices have become increasingly less insight-driven. UX processes in many organizations these days amount to little more than “UX Theatre” (an idea developed by Tanya Snook in 2018): creating the appearance of due diligence and a patina of legitimacy that’s just enough to look like a robust design process to uninformed business leaders and hopeful UX recruits alike. Too many UX leaders have seen the field’s language and ideas co-opted and corrupted by outsiders who never knew or cared about the principles underlying the practices. We thought we were winning hearts and minds, but we were really setting ourselves up for exploitation, as businesses cherry-picked the bits of UX most compatible with their existing agendas and eschewed the parts that might lead to uncomfortable questions that could influence more than the color of a button on a screen.
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Instead of challenging teams to stretch their thinking to address deeper and subtler user needs, product design practices have become increasingly less insight-driven. UX processes in many organizations these days amount to little more than “UX Theatre” (an idea developed by Tanya Snook in 2018): creating the appearance of due diligence and a patina of legitimacy that’s just enough to look like a robust design process to uninformed business leaders and hopeful UX recruits alike.
Too many UX leaders have seen the field’s language and ideas co-opted and corrupted by outsiders who never knew or cared about the principles underlying the practices. We thought we were winning hearts and minds, but we were really setting ourselves up for exploitation, as businesses cherry-picked the bits of UX most compatible with their existing agendas and eschewed the parts that might lead to uncomfortable questions that could influence more than the color of a button on a screen.
