BUX Podcast #64: The Philosophy and Discipline of UX

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The Discipline of UX

Is UX ‘baked in’ or ‘tacked on’ in your organization? Is UX just a bandwagon that everyone is jumping on because of fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD)? Or is it an indication of paradigm shifts in business, design and culture?

All of these questions are danced with in this week’s BUX official podcast. Ben clears some RAM from his iMac and fires up the microphones for a longish podcast tonight. I’m drinking apple cider and rum to fight off the cold snap here in Lumberton NC. Enjoy!

Show Notes

Abby the IA – “I am a UX Hater” – Friend of the podcast, Abby talks about emergence of UX as a thing. Can a philosophy be a job title? Can UXers thrive in a large organization that hasn’t shifted to a user centered philosophy. Ben says (and reiterates) that you can’t do Karate without philosophy AND Discipline. We agree on the for a balance of the two – in KungFu and in UX.

The UX guy is a detective of the business world. Ben is a business philosopher monk. His kung fu is strong.

What’s the difference between persuading users and manipulating them? “Man, I got ripped off!” is what you say after you have been manipulated. Did we talk about this in podcast 8?

Trends:

1.   UX is becoming better known in business, even among small businesses
2.   While this is true, there’s still a lot of FUD about UX
3.   Because this is hard, UX is still routinely tacked on, not baked in
4.   We’re finding smarter metrics
5.   More data, more granularity, and more real time data
6.   Flexibility Through Standardization

1. UX is becoming better known in business, even among small businesses

The web’s phases. 1) build something 2) get people there 3)make it awesome.

Relationship Marketing – Claude Hopkins and forces that are driving the shift to a UX philosophy.

Business, Users, and Builder / Designers – The UXers stands at the intersection of these and must speak / translate all of those languages

Cultural difference as evidenced in business transactions (Ben tells a story about this one time in Afghanistan). And, What is Kumbaya Capitalism ?

Potlatch – gift giving cultural. What is the opposite of user centered design? If we aren’t on the bandwagon of UX, where are we?

3. Because this is hard, UX is still routinely tacked on, not baked in ( we get out of order here)

Biz owners don’t want to trust users. They are very used to risking and They can’t give up control. Ben tells a story of Jeff Bezos and a famous designer.

Design is a control issue.

Sacrifice your ego… that’s scary

2. There’s still a lot of FUD about UX

FUD is a possible reason it’s ‘tacked on’ and not ‘baked in’

May I present, the decorator crab.

You fear the boss. That’s okay… if the boss is the customer. But, if it’s some middle manager who is afraid of his boss, then you got problems.

(it wouldn’t be a post, unless I mentioned) W. Edwards Deming and the toyota way. Everyone in the company is not afraid to ‘pull the cord’, stop the production line and address a critical issue. Everyone has committed to a standard.

Ben loves Taco Bell and the sweet parallax scrolling website built for Cantina Bell.

4. We’re finding smarter metrics

“Spartans built no walls” – ah, man. At this point we started talking about. I’m really not sure about this… oh, wait. The spartans were pro-active, not reactive. They went on the offense – so should a UX’er

The competitive spirit and the drive to be perfect.

KaiZen – sorry, it’s like a nervous tick.

Jiros dreams of sushi – Movie about the a super bad-ass sushi chef. He is an inspiration to strive for perfect.