Previously I posted a link to my colleague Matt Snyder’s blog post about Design Thinkers vs. Design Keepers. Since then there has been a lively and lengthy discussion in the comments section regarding how designers are viewed in the industry by non-designers, how designers view themselves, and the role of a designer and whether or not the designer is ultimately responsible for the outcome of a product. My two cents to the conversation are as follows:
In an organization responsible for building and selling a digital/software product, there are hundreds of people who affect the final outcome.
The user’s ultimate experience of using a product is a combination of what marketing says, what product managers plan, what the engineers code, etc. I (as a UX designer) can neither account for nor control all of that. But I can help be a beacon for UX values, so that when the people in those roles that fall outside my immediate sphere of influence go do their jobs – they do so in a way that creates a more positive user experience.
My job title is User Experience Designer, but I can’t “design” the user’s experience and then pass it along. The current expectations of such a job title definitely pigeon-hole me into wireframes, style guides, and workflows – but my real responsibility is to be a beacon of UX values. To me it is the difference between truly caring about doing what it takes to make the technology provide a better user experience, or designing the best solution that I can come up with based on my own individual design understanding, throwing it over the wall to the team that will build it, and crossing my fingers.
Bottom line: UX design values can’t just be a piece of the organization and process. The entire organization’s process must be beholden to UX design values – and that can’t be done by one person.
