#168 Nobody Invites the UX Designer Anymore (UX Identity Crisis, Part 2)

Okay, so back to the story.

You remember the designer, right? So he goes to the team and asks to be involved, and what happens is that the team basically ignores it.

And when I ask around a little bit, the answer that I heard roughly was, "Why would we run our work through him? You know, that's another blocker, and we'd only get slower." And I actually think that's a really honest reaction from people who just found out that they can build a prototype in an afternoon.

Because when you can go from an idea to something clickable in such a short time, every extra step feels like somebody standing in the doorway.

So what does he do next? He escalates it.

He goes to his manager and then to their managers and says, "I am not included." [laughs] And because it went up the chain like that, a meeting happens where everyone has to come together and sort it out.

Ugh, imagine that.

And the result of that meeting, the way it was described to me, was basically, "Okay, so now the UX designer's escalating on top of everything, and that doesn't help us at all, so why should we work with him in the first place?" So by fighting to be a part of it, he made his position a lot harder than it was before.

And that really made me stop and think.

I'm in this project as an external consultant, and I'm not there as a new UX expert, so I get to watch all of this a little bit from the side.

And the uncomfortable part for me is that I, that I agree with him.

I think you're probably the same, um, think that UX should be a part of every digital process, and I think that he should be included.

I think someone should be giving feedback on [laughs] what's get built for real people.

And when I hear that discovery at this company is a two-hour workshop with stakeholders who all work in tech with no research and not even any secondary, secondary research, everything in me kind of wants to stand up and say, "This isn't going to work." So I understand him, and I could say that, but then, well, I will be the blocker, too.

So is he right? I think he is.

And did he lose anyway? Yes, he did.

And I think you really need to understand why, because I have a feeling a lot of designers are about to end up in exactly his seat.

So first part, why did he lost? So here's what I think happened.

He asked for a gate at the exact moment when everyone around him had stopped waiting at that gate.

You know? I hope you get that metaphor.

And to understand why that hurt so much, I think that we got go back a little bit because for a really long time, UX was a very sexy job.

[laughs] I really can't put it any other way.

You were the expert.

You were the one who talked to users, who were, you know, close to the customer, and everything else, and the product was built on top of what you found out.

You were the expert.