Hi,
I've been casually observing the conversation around "UX" for
close to two years, mildly contemplative and majorly bemused. This
conversation seems to have recently come to a boiling point, and
while the argument over naming will continue forever, it seems like
an opportune time to share some thoughts. These are my ideas, and
they are subjective; I realize that not everyone shares them. I also
realize they are generalizations, and may offend people who find
themselves in the camp of %u201CUX%u201D. I apologize in advance, as
it%u2019s not my intention to be offensive.
Ultimately, I find myself arguing vehemently against the term "UX",
both as a job title ("User Experience Manager") and as an action
("User Experience Design"). This is a case for "interaction
design" as the container of related professions, and it's a case
for a dramatic shift in conversation away from definition and towards
cases, methods, and theory.
1. The language of "user experience designer" is demeaning, as it
implies that a designer first _makes_ an experience and then someone
_consumes_ it %u2013 that consumers are, on their own, unable to
experience things, and that an experience can be mass produced like a
hammer or a toaster. Implicit in this language is the sense of
control, power and ownership, and the idea that a consumer is
helpless to bring anything on their own to a moment in time. In
reality, people bring the complexity of their wants, needs, desires,
and world views to an experience, and this in turn actively changes
that experience. This is at the heart of much of John Dewey%u2019s
writing, and if you have anything to say about the nomenclature
argument, you owe it to yourself to read his material.
This comment about language is commonly written off as being "just
semantics", yet the issue of semantics - of meaning, and the
importance of language - is critical in order to form a philosophical
grounding for our work. At its heart, the nomenclature issue points to
a distinction between user empowerment and designer arrogance. As a
quick example: If I design a set of touchpoints in a retail
environment (the counter, the lighting, the displays, etc), I can
claim control over those touchpoints with a degree of logical
appropriateness. But if I claim to have designed the "retail
experience", I'm implicitly taking control for what the individuals
in that experience are doing - I'm illogically claiming ownership
over the actions, emotions, and thoughts of someone else.
2. The concept of "UX" presently has connotations to the corporate
middle manager who has no training in design and has little
experience making things. These UX Managers or UX Designers commonly
act as facilitators between subject matter experts and outside design
consultancies; while the facilitation is important, it's a far cry
from the complexity of actually doing design work (conducting
research, synthesizing data, giving form to ideas, etc). This role,
at least when found in the large enterprise, is viewed by many design
consultancies as a "watered down form of design". This is not to say
that everyone who has found themselves with this title is not doing
design work, but to point to a trend in corporations of designer as
facilitator rather than designer as creator.
3. The idea of "interaction design" has a long, rich, and robust
history that long overshadows the trend towards "UX" in corporate
America. From the pioneering work of John Rheinfrank to the
thoughtful discourse of Richard Buchanan and Jonas Lowgren, the
notion of designing for dialogue and in order to support behavior is
larger than the IAI, the IxDA, or the other organizations being
discussed in these threads. These pioneers discuss concepts that are
ingrained in the fabric of our culture, and their work builds upon
decades of discourse and design from the fields of industrial design,
psychology, anthropology, and the broader humanities.
4. I urge everyone on this list to move beyond the urge to define our
profession (either by what it is, or by what it isn%u2019t) and
instead begin to debate and discuss cases, methods, and theory of our
work. In no time in my four years of undergraduate design education
did we explicitly define design; instead, we defined it implicitly by
doing it and then reflecting on what we had done and how we had done
it. We can provide a little value to the larger community by offering
a concise definition of our profession, but we can provide a lot of
value to the community by offering case studies, repeatable methods,
and a deep and broad theory of our work and how it relates to other
disciplines.
Thanks,
Jon
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Posted from the new ixda.org
http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=40553
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