Starbucks did it… the Gap tried to, and created a ton of buzz around their almost new logo, and of course we can’t forget about HTML5 coming in and stealing the show. Maybe it’s time for UX to follow suit. No, I’m not talking about creating a UX logo (although that might be fun) I’m talking about rebranding and repackaging our product both internally and externally so that we can have a greater reach in our market.

Whew… that was a whole lotta marketing lingo (probably used incorrectly) but I think my point holds true. I got the idea earlier this Spring at the Healthcare Experience Design Conference while listening to one of the many phenomenal lectures. The speaker was making a great point about how interaction design/experience design is new to the healthcare industry as a whole, and how we need to earn trust in this industry in order to seem qualified to work there. I’m sure that healthcare is not the only industry where this is true… in fact I know it. But the most important point that the speaker made was that we, as designers, are only seen as relevant at the point of interface. We make the interfaces of the things we design easy to use and that builds a direct correlation between us and the interface. Therefore, all of the work that we do outside of just wireframing and sketching is lost to the other people in our industries.

A direct coorelation

Because of this, we are usually not seen as important enough to contribute to “real business value” conversations and ideas (a problem that plagues us all and fuels the majority of our debates). Because we are not important enough or relevant enough to these conversations and meetings, we are not given the opportunity to show the extent of the value that we can bring to our businesses… whether those businesses are run by doctors in the operating room or executives in the boardroom.

So, in order to start to solve this problem I think that there are a couple of steps that we need to take. And, I think that the concept behind all of these steps is rebranding what UX and IxD mean both internally to our profession and externally to our partners. Meaning, we first need to start promoting the non-tactical side of our profession. When someone asks us what we do, we need to say more than “I design and make things easier to use” (guilty of this one myself). We need to say “I study how people use things and use that knowledge to solve problems around those things”. We need to fold the non-wireframe/interface centric activities into the mix. We need to not only argue about which software is best for wireframing, but which software is best for note taking during user research and testing, as well as which methodologies work best for observing user behavior. In short, we need to talk about our profession as being more than the interface to each other… not just to everyone else.

Next, we need to start to hold our own as professionals and experts. When selling and actually doing our work we need to pick the right kind of businesses to work for and teams to work with (see UX… it’s time we STRIKE). We need to hold ourselves accountable for being wireframe monkeys, and we then need to change the cycle so that UX is seen as more than just the interface. It is our own fault that people hire us solely to change where things are on the screen if we are taking those jobs without question, and not educating our teams and bosses that there is more to what we do. As a consultant, I’m careful about which jobs to take especially if I know that the client just wants me to push things around on the screen for the visual designer to mock up. We all need to take a step back and think about how we can change this pattern with our actions and decisions, and how we can sell UX more professionally instead of just taking what is thrown at us job-wise.

Once we begin the process of rebranding both internally (to each other) and externally (to our teams and businesses) the relevance of our skillsets to other parts of the product, besides just the interface, begins to increase. As we become more relevant our external partners will see we are more than just the interface, and will hire us to do the things that we love to do and not just move boxes around the screen (not that we don’t love that as well). We can really do User Experience Design, feel proud and fulfilled in our work, as well as be present in the conversations where UX matters most… those that affect our users. So let’s do it, let’s rebrand UX from just wireframes and interfaces to what we know it really is, putting the user first and ensuring their experience with a product is service is the best it can be.

As designers we can always be distracted by the newest, coolest designs and interactions. In fact, one of the first lessons we learn when we start becoming designers is that there should always be some sort of function with our form. It’s not just about creating cool interactions, it’s about create appropriate interactions for the problems we are trying to solve. Within the past couple of years, with the release of the tablet, we have seen the influx of interaction for interactions sake, and it is taking all of our power not to fall back into the trap of designing cool things just to be cool. At a recent lecture I attended regarding how the iPad and similar devices are changing magazine publishing, I witnessed this situation in full effect. Magazines design really cool interactions for their tablet applications, but one has to question what is the core experience that they are providing with magazine interaction on these devices?

Not defining these core experiences is what, I believe, is causing the publishing industry’s demise. Instead of thinking about how users experience the content on a non-device level and bringing that to their applications, they are thinking about how users physically engage with magazines and how to replicate that in their applications. This is all well and good, but eventually the “coolness” becomes boring, and without a core experience at the base, the application becomes uninteresting. Thus the problem with not having defined the core experiences for the user is that the thing you are designing, whether a desktop app, mobile app, website, etc… has no real value to people. You are not providing value.

I think it’s obvious that in order to solve this problem of not providing value to our users through our designs we need to take a step back from the interaction and define the experience first. This is UX 101, right? If we aren’t defining the experience, what we want our users to be feeling, how their behaviors reflect needs, goals and tasks, etc then we aren’t really creating an experience at all. By just defining new and interesting interactions without thinking through the experience you aren’t really designing, you are just copying real life detailed interactions into the virtual world. Now, don’t get me wrong, these interactions are extremely important. They are, however, only interactions until they are coupled with the overarching meaning.

Thus, our UX model still holds true even after all this time. In order to provide value… real value, we need to create an experience before we layer interactions on top of it. This is not something that I see most people doing when assembling their new tablet applications, for example. Instead they are more concerned with all the new interactions that they can provide users through this new medium. However, these interactions will become stale when the next big thing hits. By creating and understanding the experience that the application is trying to provide, we are creating real value for our users. The outcome of doing this are applications, websites and products that are useful and have a much longer lifespan because they provide value to the users they were designed for. So, all you designers out there, look to the experience first, then the medium you are designing in. And all you magazine application designers, take a step back and ask yourself what you are really designing. Trust me, you product will be much more kick ass for it.



Imagine my delight when only hours after I drafted this post, Jeffery Zeldman highlighted a great, similar (but better written) post about The Problem with Magazine Apps.

This post ranges outside of our UX circle, and is something I’ve been thinking about, and arguing with friends about, for a long time. It deals with becoming a better teammate as well as a better project team member. Brainstorming and generating ideas is something we value very highly in our profession. And rightly so, the more ideas we have the more options we have at getting to a solution. But, generating ideas does not equal solving the problem. I believe that an idea is not really a solution until it is put into action, and generating ideas without knowing what it takes to put that idea into action can be a dangerous thing.

Don’t get me wrong. Generating a good amount of ideas at the right time is not a bad thing. Often it is the reason why a great solution comes along. I’m not saying that during this appropriate idea generating time that you should NOT say an idea because you don’t know how it will be solved. Obviously, that is the point of brainstorming and you should be open minded and generate as many ideas as possible without worry of how to implement those ideas. The problem that I’m talking about is when you are not at a brainstorming time within a project, but are instead in a crucial decision or problem solving instance and things just need to get done. The problem with continually generating ideas and not thinking about how to put them into action, at least at some level, during these times is huge. There are several reasons why. First, by generating a lot ideas without thought as to how to bring them to action, you are putting the work onto someone else to actually solve the problem, and usually during these high pressured times, no one has the time for “extra work”. Thus you are not being sensitive to your team. Secondly, by generating ideas, assuming they are solutions but not thinking about the actions associated with bringing the idea to life, you are not educating yourself on how ideas turn into solutions and thus aren’t learning the work that it really takes to do so. Throwing the work at your teammates causes them to become bitter and untrusting of your ideas and you as a teammate; “oh here we go with Bob, just throwing these ideas out there and expecting me to create solutions from them”. Not educating yourself means you are not sensitive to how work really gets done on a project, and that is a bad quality in a project team member.

So, in order to stop these types of action, you should generate ideas, yes this is good, but think about and try to at some point put them into action. Take note of what this takes and how hard it is to do. Become sensitive to all the work that goes into putting your ideas into a project plan, or solution, and really understand those that are doing so day in and day out.

By doing this, you will become a better teammate because you will have empathy for the doers and empathy for what it takes to put an idea into action. You will also be better at understanding projects overall because you’ll be able to deconstruct ideas into what it takes to see them come to life. And finally you will start to see that generating ideas does not equal solving a problem. It is an important step in doing so, but if it’s crunch time you’ll need to take it a step further to be of great value to your team. You’ll need to be able to figure out how to get sh!t done. Now that equals a great teammate.