Hello All,
A client recently asked me what my thoughts on system thinking were. It caught me off guard as it was a technique I had never heard of. I felt stupid, but in hindsight, I should not have.
Supposedly it was Albert Einstein who said, “The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don’t know.” The longer I have worked in UX and Digital, the more I agree with him.
I cringe when I look back at my younger self. I thought I knew all the answers and got frustrated when other people couldn’t see it. If they mentioned a technique I wasn’t aware of, I would bullshit or dismiss it as inappropriate.
Then as I aged, I began to realize that maybe I didn’t know all the answers, but that was okay because I was confident in the processes that would get me to the right solution. All I needed to do was run a design sprint or create a design system, and everything would be okay.
These days, I am not sure even that is right.
The Latest Trends Are Not Always Appropriate
I get approached by people who have read about a particular technique (be it customer journey mapping or top task analysis) and want my help implementing them. In fact, as with the client I mentioned earlier, it is not unusual for them to raise a technique I have never heard of, despite working in the field for over 25 years.
But, these latest trendy UX techniques come and go like any other fashion, and although they have real value, they are often used as a square peg in a round hole.
It is so common to see people use these techniques, not because they are the best tool for solving their problem, but because they read somewhere that some company or person they admire uses it. As a result, they are focused on the technique and not the outcome.
There is no one-size-fits-all solution to solving UX challenges, and what works for Google or Amazon will almost certainly not work for you.
Working in UX is Messy
Furthermore, working in UX is messier than some neat implementation of a series of industry-standard techniques.
It is so messy that even after being briefed on an objective, it is still not always evident what direction you should go and what approaches you should deploy.
That is why I hate writing proposals. Clients expect me to lay out exactly what I am going to do and the order in which I will do it to get to their desired outcome. Understandably they also want a fixed price. But the truth is I often don’t know how I will achieve an objective before I start.
There could be a hundred different nuances that may make any approach I propose impossible. For example, maybe I want to survey users, but compliance restrictions in that sector prevent it. Perhaps I want to run a workshop, but a global pandemic prevents people from coming together.
There are a hundred and one different factors at play, from technology stacks to stakeholder availability. Far too many to factor in before you even begin.
Then there is the fact that you might get surprising results from your research or testing, which means what you had planned next becomes meaningless.
Running a UX Project Is Not Like Driving a Car
Running a UX project is not like driving to a destination. You cannot simply enter your objective into a sat nav and see the route to it appear on a screen.
Instead, it is more like surfing. You know your destination, but the waves are constantly on the move. That means you have to move with the waves and the currents, adapting on the fly to ensure you end up in the right place.
In short, our work is messy, iterative and collaborative. So we need to learn as we do and get comfortable with that fact.
Thanks,
P.S. I want to thank RocketHub for helping me spread the word about this newsletter. So in return, I wanted to tell you about them.
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