Do you remember when someone told you that there was no Santa Clause or that there was no such thing as the Easter bunny?  Over the last 8 months, I’ve experienced my very own ‘There’s no Santa’ (truth) moment with regard to UX in general, specifically  the perception of the value UX brings to business. Over the last few years, I’ve read a few books and blogs by UX enthusiasts and followed several UX pioneers on Twitter and I was convinced that most UX problems could be solved by finding ways to fit UX practices into corporate product & project life cycles. Unfortunately, the ‘There’s no Santa’ happened when I saw how others view UX in a few ways:

1. UX Salaries & Opportunities - I used to think that it was possible to earn as much (or more) as a top developer or manager in a UX role. The truth is that there aren’t enough jobs available in UX and of those, the highest paying UX jobs are controlled by a very close-knit aristocracy. Mentorships are far and few between and often, people aren’t seriously interested in spreading the knowledge of UX unless it’s in exchange for an expensive registration fee, an expensive hardcover book, or expensive white-paper reports. As long as other jobs provide more compensatory  benefits than UX and the time and cost to learn UX remains sky high, it will be difficult to promote UX’s value to the general populace. Despite it’s power and growth, UX cannot break the rules of economics…



2. Perceived value of UX by non-UX teams - I thought that most companies wanted to include UX in their life cycles, more often than not, UX is seen as a project risk since it has the potential to raise costs and run over deadlines. In the concrete business world, people are concerned with completing deliverables on time and within a budget. A product can succeed/fail for a variety of reasons (i.e. marketing, quality control, availability, pricing, or some combination), but I have never (do not interpret this as being an absolute. I speak for myself only as I’m sure that at least one person has experienced the opposite) heard a management team claim that any product owes the majority of it’s success/failure to the user experience. Many UX advocates may disagree and try to speak for non-UXers and say that the perception of UX isn’t THAT low, but there is a definite bias. UX advocates HAVE to believe the discipline’s value is high because they practice UX (sounds simple, but it has to be stated). I’m not saying that the value isn’t high, but the reality is that it’s possible that the value is a just a tad overstated. UX may be a discussed as an important topic of improvement, but UX’s importance is below pricing, availability, quality, etc. when it comes to purchasing decisions. Only after a convenient and affordable product has been found does a consumer ask ‘Does it work well?’. Why isn’t ‘ease of use’ a product filter on Amazon.com? That’s exactly how a few business sees UX too..



3. Lack of cross-departmental awareness with user experience - You DO NOT have to satisfy an obscure set of rules to practice UX. It’s in the best interest of the discipline as a whole to assimilate anyone with the capacity to learn in order to spread it’s true utilitarian power. Unfortunately, trying to couple concrete skill sets with UX is unheard sounds weird in business. Even more so, most companies realize that concrete skills like software development are easier verify and convert into revenue generating deliverables. But if a company doesn’t formally recognize UX practices or hire UX personnel, guess which roles instantly become the best source of UX? The developer, the manager, and everyone else who isn’t a UX expert by title become the last, best hope for UX. However, learning UX cannot be a company initiative. UX’s value has to be recognized by the individual and exercised covertly (think Jedi mind tricks), lest a person come off as a fanatic and using magic to risk project timelines and robbing other teams of value daily.  Imagine you are a hiring manager for a large company and you have to look over the resumes of 2 candidates. Each candidate has an objective listed:

• I’m a UX expert, know code, and manage people
• I’m a web developer with experience managing people and I am familiar with user experience principles and patterns

Underlying questions: Who gets hired first and who gets the highest salary? Can UX only be practiced effectively in a formal role or can UX be an ancillary skill within a non-UX role?

Feedback is welcome….
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