Tuesday, July 24, 2018

Creating a good UX is not a design problem, it’s a power struggle. (Alan Cooper)

I like to joke that I work in a sausage factory. Now, the various companies I’ve worked for over the years have produced some mighty tasty sausages. Our customers would be shocked, though, to know what actually goes on behind the scenes in the creation of their particularly delicious software, website, or app. 

It’s really not too surprising if you think about it though. First, there are usually way too many chefs in the kitchen – the client, upper management, the design team, IT, legal, usability … And everyone has their own opinion – if not axe to grind.

Further, there’s typically no set recipe. Oh sure, everyone tries to formalize the process somehow. But what all that usually devolves into at some point is a good, old-fashioned knockdown, drag-out fight. 

And I think that’s just human nature. We all pay lip service to collaboration, but there are always going to be dominant types who fight for their way as they climb up the corporate ladder. Ever been exposed to the DISC personality typology? It’s the only one I know that actually is quite honest about all this –  with D meaning dominant, S submissive, and C compliant (I is for influencers, by the way – sort of dominant types who are also pretty nice). Other folks may simply have fallen in love with their own design, want to get their own two cents in, have poor impulse control, or just possess an overly sized ego. 

I have noticed, though, that some companies are a little better at managing this than others. A lot of them, for example, have solved the problem by simply being very hierarchical. Of course, unless you’re the U.S. Army, this really isn’t the optimal solution. (To tell you the truth, though, I actually prefer this structure to the Darwinian free-for-all.) And I’ve also worked at some companies where people were actually pleasant to each other, weighed the evidence, and tried to make the right decision. Shocking, I know.

Well, one thing a usability engineer always has going for them is the evidence. I find that can have a lot of weight, even in the middle of those knockdown, drag-out fights. And as for those types who aren’t interested in evidence and live in a alternative fact-free universe? Well, those are fights I don’t care to even get involved in.


Though it’s definitely not just Microsoft