I’ve been involved in a lot of projects in my many MANY years as a UX professional – some good, some bad, most… interesting. One thing I’m beginning to see as a trend is the rise of what I consider “UX Theatre”. That is when project stakeholders and product owners give a generous amount of attention to user experience when they are talking about the project, but when it comes to the actual motion of DOING the actual user-centered design WORK… well, they always find a reason not to actually make that activity occur.
I wish I could take credit for the term but I am not that smart – the real credit comes from @spydergrrl on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/spydergrrl/status/955218540977631232
Some times, it’s really frustrating. I know of one project that had FOUR design teams, across multiple locations – dozens of designers – but the project had only ONE researcher, who did nothing but test designs to validate them. As our current President might tweet… SAD.
So here’s how to recognize UX Theatre, and hopefully avoid it.
Little-to-no user research
When you have product owners who think they know better than the actual users, you will often see some very direct comments from such people around what the users “want.” They will be absolutely right about their opinions, and expect no one to question their all-seeing all-knowing wisdom. These “experts” lead their teams down a single-threaded path that results in a myopic offering that will, more often than not, result in an offering that solves no ones problems.
The way to avoid this, of course, is to put aside bias and actually go out and talk to the end-users of the offering, to identify how the solutions solve the real problems. Of course, such motion means that these product owners will have to relinquish control… which, for egotistic product managers, mean they will have to relinquish power.
Stolen ideas, rationalized
“Great artists steal.” When you hear people quote Picasso, be wary. It is an excuse to take shortcuts and not innovate.
This is not saying that reuse of standard patterns is a bad things – it IS saying that designers who lift features and interaction patterns wholesale are potentially taking shortcuts and not really designing anything. It’s not innovation, it’s copying features from other more successful apps.
No usability testing
Testing interactions and designs is UX 101, and any project team that decides that they “don’t have time” to do these activities end up with an experience that is always less than perfect. The idea that any designer can get it right the first time is egotistical and inflexible. User feedback is a GIFT – not taking advantage of it in early design iterations is a mistake that will cost the project in the long run.
A focus on visual design, instead of interactions
As important visual design is as part of an experience, it is NOT the key focus of any experience design effort. The focus should be first on user needs and pain points, and after that – the way users interact with the information and the functions provided. When you have multiple teams focusing on branding and not on HOW the user gets things done, you are setting up a very large stage to perform “UX Theatre.”
Pretentious conversations that go nowhere
How important is design? So important that you have to spend HOURS discussing it. When you are on a project that has multiple workshops to identify how to make a widget work, and what verbiage should be used for a particular control, congratulations! You are a featured player in a “UX in name only” exercise. You will burn many hours without solving any meaningful problem. Great if you are a consultant paid by the hour, horrible if you make to want a meaningful difference in people lives.
Tweaking minutiae that doesn’t matter
How does that calendar control work? How do people submit their time on a mobile device? When you spend effort on details that are inconsequential you are focusing on the wrong level – you solve the problems that don’t make a real difference. As thermodynamics shows us, energy is neither gained or lost – it is merely transferred. Invest the time in solving the “big rock” problems instead of the inconsequential ones.
There you have it – some indicators that you are may be playing “UX Theatre” instead of actually making a difference in what your team is producing. In case of UX Theatre, apply ample user research and feedback and use that achieved wisdom to solve the real problems – and make users lives better.