Once upon a time, it felt like UX design could change the world. Think back to the very first time you used Uber. An intuitive, beautifully designed user experience – with you at the heart of it.
At the centre of a real-time map, with all the Ubers in your location whizzing around like giant bumblebees. From that point forward, you were no longer hanging around on a street corner (in the rain) in the vain hope of finding a taxi. From then on, you just reached for your phone.
When UX design (sometimes called product design) proved itself creatively and commercially, UX designers got a seat at the leadership table. Especially in fintech and SAAS (software as a service) firms (think: Airbnb, Monzo), UX defined the meaning of disruptor brands and was taken seriously in return.
But over time, the corporate understanding of what good UX means – and the possibilities of how it can transform business – seems to have taken a knock.
Too often, UX designers are asked to ‘just skin’ a generic platform. That’s not UX design. That’s just makeup. And now, almost anyone with a touchscreen phone can create a polished-looking digital interface in any of a plethora of no-code platforms (think: Canva, Webflow, Adobe). But it’s come at the cost of human-centred, human-feeling, human-toiling innovation.
As automation has increased, digital interfaces have become digital wallpaper. Websites and apps follow predictable patterns and acceptable conventions – hamburger menus, infinite scrolling, tray navigation. Metrics, A/B testing and data-driven decision-making have led to incremental improvements but not groundbreaking new ideas. The business focus has moved towards ease and speed. But ease and speed aren’t all we need.
UX design got lazy
I’ve built my career on the double diamond design thinking process:
Discover > Define > Design > Develop.
It’s served innovation in business for the last 40 years, rethinking UX, product and service design with the human, the user, the customer at the heart of strategic decision-making.
In the age of data, hyper personalisation and machine learning, we should be able to get the best of both worlds. Valuable human insights and rich data working in harmony. I fear right now design feels stuck in an incremental-gains mode. When did we stop taking risks, and exploring something genuinely new and different?
Good UX design is hard.
And that’s good It’s not all bad news. There are still new ways to interact in our favourite apps and services. The Monzo moment when you’re asked to take a photo of your bank card instead of prompting you to tap–in–every–single–card–number–and–date. The feeling when you look at your iPhone and its shrill ring tone quietens down.
These are brilliantly crafted interactions when the design of the user experience reaches delight. Getting to those simple moments takes care and craft. Good UX design loves and needs time. Time for original thought, exploring rabbit holes, getting out into the streets, having passionate arguments and a commitment to solving real human problems.
It’s hard work – and it should be. But get it right and it offers the hope of disrupting not just the aesthetics of your app, but the balance sheet of your business. I’d love for big business to put UX design back at the leadership table.
That’s where human-centred, strategic design innovation began and belongs.
