[chunkyks]

My observation is that once "UI" became "UX", interfaces turned terrible across the board.

When I did the human interface course in my comp.sci degree, there was a lot of attention on standardization, making things people could effectively interact with, consistent feature widgets that are clearly those widgets. Remember "HIG"s?

Nowadays, instead of trying to find a way to make an interface pleasant and consistent, it has to be a unique butterfly of some glorious design that just sucks.

Next time you're designing something with a button that doesn't have a border and isn't clearly a button... Step back and have a rethink. Radio buttons indistinguishable from checkboxes? Your design is bad.

Now get off my lawn

[xmcqdpt2]

Agree. "Golden age of UX" is the same age of UX that came up with the hamburger menu? Give me a fucking break. That "golden" age was only gilding the UX researchers themselves.

I want my Mac OS 7 back!

[m_mueller]

> I want my Mac OS 7 back!

on phone screen though? I'm not a fan of hamburgers either, but it's still better than something hidden by touch gestures - which for a while was the direction.

[JohnFen]

Well, a large part of where UX design goes wrong, in my opinion, is because people keep trying to have a "one UI to rule them all" approach. What you inevitably get is a UI that isn't great on any device, or is great on one and really terrible on the others.

As an industry, we need to get rid of the notion that you can have a single sort of user interface that works on every device. A phone is very different than a desktop, and the appropriate compromises for one are not the same as the appropriate compromises for the other.

[drooopy]

I've been saying this for years. For me, UI design for desktop computers peaked with System 7.

[pcurve]

With all the virtue ux espouses, usability of digital products is worse than ever.

I resigned from my ux director position a few months ago partly because of what the profession degenerated into.

[uxcolumbo]

Do you have more details of why you resigned? What specifically?

Did you lead a team of designers?

Or was it people above you pushing for things that went against your principles and you couldn't convince them?

[pcurve]

I led a team of 18 designers with several managers in between, supporting large web and mobile products. Chances are you or at least someone you know uses them regularly.

I feel people in the UX profession have a chip on our shoulder and suffer from an inferiority complex. Mind you, to be a really effective UX, you have to be exceedingly intelligent and competent and I'm not questioning the value of what UX people bring to the table.

However, we shot ourselves in the foot by not keeping in check of our ambition and overselling our value to the broader enterprise.

To have better control over the product outcome, we asked to be engaged more upstream sooner and have a seat at the table with executives at the planning stage. And we got it.

For better or worse, UX / Design has been very successful at inserting itself everywhere in the business process, from start to finish. The genericization of our job titles reflect this growing ambition and organizational footprint.

Web Design -> UI Design -> UX Design -> Product Design.

The empire building also continued through the invention of new subdisciplines: DesignOps, then more recently ResearchOps.

It's all well and good, until an overreach happens and you're encroaching into territory that has already existed. For example, UX research asked to do work that traditionally fell on specialized experts, like industry / sector-specific market research or generative research.

Another example is hugely-staffed design systems team with over-engineered systems & control processes that are difficult to use, contribute to and maintain. Mind you, some have their own UX engineers that sit outside the engineering org.

As a result of all these, it has also become exceedingly difficult to hire a perfectly "T-shaped" person, because they just don't exist. (at $130-$150k/year).

Lastly, there's no craftsmanship in the profession anymore, at least not in-house.

Most good designs that you see are still done by outside agencies, who still operate their design shops tightly, hire for very specific skill sets, use project managers (gasp), and waterfall (gasp).

I left my job partly because I realized I had turned into a person espousing very things that I hate in the profession. (I also needed a career break after working nonstop for almost 20 years.)

[uxcolumbo]

Thanks for clarifying.

I think we in design have over complicated things. What I've noticed is we don't speak in plain terms when selling design and to your point it's also down to empire building. And the dribbblisation of design - can't stand it.

I'm in a similar position right now - thinking about quitting this corporate design job and take a sabbatical to focus on refining and expanding my skillset and then join more meaningful projects, e.g. clean/climate-tech related projects.

Do you have a blog or newsletter? I'd love to read more about your design thoughts.

[JohnFen]

> Lastly, there's no craftsmanship in the profession anymore

This is something I see across the board in the software industry, not just in the UX world.

[wellanyway]

I'd be very curious to read your rant

[pcurve]

Posted above. Caution... it is basically a rant.

[pjlegato]

Having standardized design and widgets across all UIs makes it easy for a user to figure out what's going on by making your application look, feel, and work the same as all others. Anyone familiar with the general HIGs can just sit down and start using it with minimal hassle.

Having standardized design and widgets across all UIs makes it harder for a consumer to remember your brand. It's not sticky in their minds, visually speaking. Your application looks, feels, and works exactly the same as your competitors' applications. This has measurable impact on revenue, and it's bad for your bottom line.

Guess which one most businesses choose: easier to use, or better revenue?

[incrudible]

This sounds like the kind of stuff people can just say without evidence because it sort of sounds right but is unfalsifiable in practice.

In my experience, there is far more people that complain about inconsistent UI than those who care about your cute little corporate identity.

[pupileater]

Also, not like we have these "color palette" thingies that we, UI designers, already use to establish branding without affecting usability. We have a lot of UI elements we can change their properties of without directly affecting usability like borders, elevations, distances (while maintaining good contrast and looking out for color blindness too). Design systems exist for a reason. Heck, every SaaS and product already has a sales page for marketing content that is entirely designed to drive sales, no need to introduce dark patterns (or invent new crazy patterns that solves an already solved problem) in the application. A lot of interaction has already been solved, I don't see why can't we automate the whole UI process with a given opinionated design system.

[JohnFen]

> Having standardized design and widgets across all UIs makes it harder for a consumer to remember your brand.

Not automatically. Only if you neglect all of the myriad other ways to make your application stand out. Standardized controls and layout do not have to mean that all applications look the same.

[hulitu]

> Having standardized design and widgets across all UIs makes it harder for a consumer to remember your brand.

Hm, then why does Windows looks like Android ?

[DiggyJohnson]

It doesn't?

[AnIdiotOnTheNet]

They had to change the term, because "User Interface" sounded like something that was primarily designed to help the user interface with the computer, where as "User Experience" is clearly something intended to help the user experience as many ads as possible in the shortest time span.

[wellanyway]

> remember "HIGs"

Most UX people don't know what that even is.

[robocat]

Apple still has a HIG: https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guideline...

Although personally I find it a bit incoherent (e.g. toolbar versus navigation bar versus tab bar) or (e.g. “buttons” that are just blue text or even grey text in Apple apps).

[hulitu]

> Most UX people don't know what that even is.

They shall RTFM then. /s

But the world is evolving and instead of UX people reading the ICCCM they just moved on and created Wayland.

If you have a leak in a pipe just demolish the whole house and build it again.

[eska]

In the follow up post he writes that many people commented this kind of work is beneath them and can be done by anyone and will just be automated away by ChatGPT. Say that at my company and I’ll reconsider working with you. So out of touch..

[chunkyks]

Oh, it's super hard to build good interfaces, I'd never claim otherwise. Everything user facing I build is trash and I know it, so I work with UI people. I would assert that most of what's made under the banner of "UX" by people who think they're good is also trash from a usability perspective.

(it's possible that the ux people are optimizing for something other than end users getting their stuff done, like conversion rate. But that doesn't make a trash interface good, it just means you get to pay your mortgage this month.)

[eska]

Sorry, I wasn’t being clear. The “you” in my last sentences wasn’t directed at you, but at people sending such replies to the author! I agree with you wholeheartedly.