[EFFALO]

"User experience design" is one of the most pretentious titles that Design (with a big D in front) has ever appropriated. As if a designer (little d) can really design an experience... Experiences unfold in realtime, shaped by a multitude of forces which the designer could never predict or even begin to comprehend.

This article reminds us to focus on what Design (big D) once knew when our practice focused on interactions and augmenting human intellect... affordances, feedback, loops.

Seeing my parents and peers struggle with understanding iOS or dealing with shitty bank websites makes me feel that we lost our way somewhere. Maybe one day we will return.

[x3haloed]

I would argue that what you're seeing with bad design is not the fault of UX design as a concept but rather specific examples where it failed. UX designers are supposed to help ensure that software is usable and frustration free. If the software fails to achieve those things, then either the UX designer has failed or has been overridden by someone else. Or it's consensus design. The UX designers job us not to make things prettier or more sexy than usable, because sacrificing usability with frustrate people, which is something they should understand and apply.

[noen]

Sorry but as a UxD of 15+ years, that is exactly what I and my team do. It is entirely possible and reasonable for a little d designer to understand and account for the realtime forces that affect a user in context.

The problem is three-fold. First, is that UxD has become a catch all for any digital designer (it took me 8 months to hire 2 qualified UxDs). Second, most companies simply don't pay for professional design talent.

I can tell you with certainty that banks pay between 30% and 50% of market rate for senior design talent. Most mobile app startups pay slightly less than that.

Third is that we don't write the code. We can only recommend what a developer should build and what a stakeholder should prioritize. I've watched both sandbag good design in favor of more features more times than I can count. I've watched both sandbag good design because there was no percieved business value more than once. I've had so many countless conversations with developers who wouldn't do the work because they didn't know how to implement a design and wouldn't admit their knowledge gap.

A true UxD who can cover interaction, behavioral psychology, kinesiology, aesthetics, workflow, accessibility, information architecture and basic research methods can command good money that most companies outside FAANG aren't willing to spend.

[kps]

> I've watched both sandbag good design because there was no percieved business value more than once.

Riffing on the article title: Simple Does Not Mean Deficient.

“Star had many fewer commands than today’s systems, and it didn’t do it by having fewer functions. It just had fewer commands.” — Dave Smith at The Final Demonstration of the Xerox ‘Star’ Computer (video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OwG_rQ_Hqw text: http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/201... )

[interactivecode]

As a ux designer it can also be incredibly hard to find a job that's doing actual ux research. When I worked as a UX designer every boss just wanted me to confirm a design is "user friendly" instead of taking the time to research user flows and designing behaviour.