Moving to a UX-Critical Culture

UX Critical as Part of the Culture

The concept of mobile first is part of all modern Web-development projects—or at least it should be. Everything we design—from navigation, to interaction, to content—should be able to scale gracefully and selectively adapt to every device, from the smallest phone to the largest desktop monitor. This is a concept we can all get behind. Development teams see accommodating all types of users as good business and spend a lot of time employing techniques that ensure Development embraces this philosophy and does Responsive Web Design (RWD) correctly.

Mobile first is an idea that has become ingrained in our development culture, but, in many ways, User Experience just isn’t quite there yet. There are still many organizations that merely pay lip service to the concept of UX critical, as becomes obvious when they say User Experience is important, but involve us too late or don’t give us enough time to do the work. When people think UX professionals and strategists are doing something magical or just making a user interface look good, they relegate us to a non-critical path within the development cycle.

So how can we change this misperception of our being magical beings and make UX critical part of our development culture? To be honest, the change starts with us.

Don’t accept the magical moniker.

Yes, the accolades feel good. Of course, it’s nice to receive recognition and be acknowledged for the work we do; to be held in high esteem by our peers who see us as doing something they cannot do. However, this perception can also falsely build up people’s expectations of what we can do. So don’t accept the image of a hero swooping in to save a project. I know this feels good, but strategically, it’s just not the right way to go. Remember to continually thank those who have helped make your work a success—and do it publicly. Thank the team, the customers, the users, and most importantly, thank whoever is in charge of sizing a project for giving you enough time to do all that tough work.

Be 100% transparent.

Document what you do. Contribute to the project plan. Publish your process and give updates along the way. Be crystal clear about deliverables and timing. Deliver on your commitments impeccably. While all this may seem obvious, a lot of times we tend go into a corner and emerge with the problem solved. This lack of visibility of the process we follow contributes to the notion that, whenever there is a problem, we go away for a bit and emerge with a solution. It does not make people aware of the process, the time it takes to do it right, or the sweat equity you’ve poured into your work. It’s okay to show folks how tough our work is, as long as we do it without whining. Everyone’s job is tough, and it’s okay for other people on the team to know ours is, too.

Align the UX process to the project plan.

So many project plans—whether agile or waterfall—don’t really get to the right level of detail or show the appropriate timing when it comes to UX activities and deliverables. This can contribute to the notion that there is plenty of time for User Experience because people don't really understand what it takes. When stakeholders don’t understand something, it’s far easier for them to chip away at the budget for it. So make sure to expose your UX process properly in any project plan. Question things; speak up.

Conclusion

These are several things that we, as UX professionals, can start to do to ensure that people do not see us as magicians, but rather as critical, contributing project-team members. Driving a UX-critical mentality into a culture is hard work and goes beyond the activities I’ve just described.

Building a design-thinking organization means taking the more strategic route. Again, though, it start with us. Magicians do not build sophisticated, UX-critical organizations. Magicians entertain and delight, and always make us walk away wondering how they do it—before we quickly move on to other things. To stop this from happening to User Experience, we need to ensure that we are part of the organizational ecosystem, not simply the entertainment.