“UX? Oh, that’s great but what is it…?”
That’s how most people respond when I say I’m starting a career in UX. We know good UX is vital, but if it’s such an important part of how products and services are created, how come people don’t know what it is?
Samuel Pantcheff | April, 2022
This happened to me:
You know when you get really into something? You dive down a bottomless rabbit hole of articles, blogs, podcasts, influencers, and videos? It becomes a sort of hobby but worryingly more obsessive.
You’re so deep into the subject you can’t possibly imagine that other people don’t get it too.
Well, the crazy thing about my UX-flavoured obsession is they really don’t. And not normally because it’s just not their “thing”.
When I tell people I’ve entered the world of UX, the response is invariably “Huh? What now?” There’s often a lot of smiling and nodding, a lot of noncommittal, under-impressed looks, and very, very few “Oh wow! UX! That’s great!”.
That’s my experience, anyway.
People might ask if it’s like coding or if it’s the same as UI, something their brother’s flatmate’s ex-girlfriend’s sister did a course in 5 years previously.
No, and no.
“But it’s tech, right?” Getting warmer.
The problem is, that saying “it’s tech” is reductive and frankly misleading. Of course, User Experience is more often than not applied to developing digital interactions. But what I’ve discovered, and actually the thing I like most about UX is that it’s more about people and their experiences than tech.
I came across a clip of Don Norman talking about the term UX and one quote struck me:
“Today [the term UX] has been horribly misused. It’s used by people who say ‘I’m a User Experience Designer, I design websites or I design apps’, and they have no clue as to what they’re doing and they think the experience is that simple device, the website or the app or who knows what. No. It’s everything. It’s the way you experience the world, it’s the way you experience life, it’s the way you experience a service or, yeah, an app or a computer system. But it’s a system that’s everything.”
It’s universal, then. In one way or another, everyone has User Experience.
So what’s missing?
How come the people I’m talking to and, more disturbingly, those we’re designing for don’t know what UX is?
Well, the term itself was popularised when Norman became Apple’s first ever User Experience Architect in 1993 so it’s relatively new. Perhaps people can be forgiven for not having heard of it yet.
And although Mr Norman would prefer a more holistic definition of UX, User Experience Design is most frequently applied to digital offerings or services. If you’re not in that world, maybe you wouldn’t be aware.
Not to mention, it’s still a growing industry. I hadn’t met anyone doing it as a job until I started getting serious about a career in this area. (It is growing fast, though — CNN Money says that ten-year growth from 2015 will total 18%.)
From my perspective, the paradox surrounding good UX Design is that it is simultaneously all about the end User’s interaction with a product or service and at the same time intangible in that same interaction.
Sure, if you asked a friend or family member what they liked about their favourite holiday booking app, music player, or kitchen spatula invariably the answer would be that it’s easy to use or it’s intuitive or it’s useful.
And yes, this is the result of quality UX Design.
But what I’ve learnt about User Experience thus far is that the process of empathy, the logical, step-by-step discovery and methodical understanding of Users is so much more about the journey than the destination.
And, crucially, if you’re doing it right, the User isn’t meant to notice it. It would make UX Design redundant if by going on the journey you made the User aware of 6 months research, surveys, stakeholder presentations, hours on Figma and countless iterations when all they want to do is book a holiday, listen to their music or make their dinner.
This might explain why people who enjoy the good UX of their kitchen utensils don’t know that User Experience Design is their spatula’s hidden superpower.
No going back now.
Now that I’ve begun thinking a bit more like a UXer, it’s impossible to see any product I interact with, without seeing through its disguise. I can spot Superman under Clark Kent’s bulky glasses from a mile off. (OK, maybe that’s an exaggeration…)
What’s most interesting though, is my friends ask very different questions regarding my new career choice/interest now they know a little more.
One friend of mine whom I work with comes up to me regularly and points out, in his slightly facetious yet endearing way, something he came across with terrible UX Design that day.
Once you start noticing it, it’s impossible to stop. Like Don Norman says, it’s all around us — “it’s a system that’s everything”.
And while understanding a person’s experience of the world fascinates me, it’s OK that some people don’t engage with it like I do.
In fact, it’s better that way. Research would be extremely tricky if everyone you spoke to had a UX Designer’s world view.
But if my circle of friends is anything to go by, I would be very surprised if understanding the job even at surface value doesn’t become part of “job chat”.
And as UX Design positions continue to increase in popularity in the workforce and employer demand, that’s no bad thing.
Originally hailing from Oxford, UK, I’m currently based in Salzburg, Austria working as an opera singer at the State Theatre and studying part-time to become a UX designer. Check back here to follow my story
