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May just be a coincidence, but no one I've ever worked with who had "UX" in their title seemed to A) Know or B) Care about users as human beings and their exper

May just be a coincidence, but no one I've ever worked with who had "UX" in their title seemed to A) Know or B) Care about users as human beings and their experiences. Most were primarily concerned with turning whatever app/page in production into their personal art gallery, almost always at the user's expense and would respond with a blank stare if you tried to discuss, say, gestalt issues.

jcomis 7y ago
Yikes. That's a problem when people conflate visual design and UX. Happens constantly. It's very easy to judge "good" visual design, so good visual designers tend to rocket into the ranks of UX/Product design without real knowledge of how to best design for user needs and goals.
pcurve 7y ago
That's a shame. You wouldn't be able to get away with that in most large companies where there are large and established ux practices. They, like other orgs have to justify their existence through value they deliver.
hombre_fatal 7y ago
That only reflects the quality of people you tend to work with. It's like saying engineers suck. I've worked with UX professionals who were the powerhouse behind amazing products and were sometimes the only people at the entire company batting for the end users (which is the point of the article). It really is a great experience to be a developer when there's a skilled UX designer working full-time on such a hard problem upstream from you. And it's a harder job than I think most people realize. Balancing UI with the constraints of being human friendly is its own class of engineering. Looking at all the UX turds that developers come up with because UX is hard, you'd think the top comment would be a bit more understanding or appreciative of UX work. I guess this hubris is why good UX is so rare, especially among "Show HN" projects. ;) BTW, the article doesn't trash UX professionals as unnecessary which is how you and other HNers want to interpret the title. Rather, the article does the opposite. It points out that ideally you strive for good UX at the systemic/organizational level, not just depend on some UX hotshots to save your ass.
- dccoolgai 7y ago
  I didn't offer any opinion as to whether the work of creating goid user experiences is _necessary_. Since you brought it up, I think that it most certainly _is_ - just that in my experience, people with "UX" in their title tend to be the most adversarial to that concern.
  - achow 7y ago
    As parent mentions.. That only reflects the quality of people you tend to work with. Wherever you worked, may be they were low in design maturity ie., without optimal ux culture. There would be 100 such places for 1 that has robust design driven product development culture. Also, that place may be hiring poorly, which in turn reflects on the leadership of that place, and so on..
- codyogden 7y ago
  Oof...I feel you completely misrepresented the spirit of the original comment. They didn't speak in generalities, and they shared only their personal experience.
codyogden 7y ago
I've had the same experience as you're describing: graphic designers who believe user experience is the same thing as art direction. There is a whole level of learning they just don't get from the purely artistic, 'gut feeling' perspective. They can design beautiful branding, visuals, and print-ready elements, but it's seems hard for them to understand everyday users. I'm trying to move away from front end/software and into a more UX/Product design role. I think my experience is valuable because I have have good 'digital taste', user empathy, and desire to make data-driven decisions. I generally lack the graphic design skills of visual designers outside of wireframes and low-fi mockups, but I make up for it in the ability to bring together business, creative, and technology. UX is building a 'sweet spot' balance of those things.
- varrock 7y ago
  What made you want to make that transition from front-end software engineering into the UX role?
  - codyogden 7y ago
    Sorry, this is a long answer. I haven't perfected my 'switch pitch' yet. lol I worked at a marketing agency from 2016-11 to 2019-06. Went from developer to 'Director of Software' in Jan 2019. Fancy title at a 15-person agency, really just part of the leadership team. I couldn't put my finger on what it was I wanted, and I thought I wanted to return to being an individual contributor to software. Management role was fine by itself, but I didn't feel like my seat had an end 'work product' result; and I also didn't feel valued since it was basically a dual role and was paid relatively poorly. Any given day, I was working with strategy (client), creative, marketing/copywriting, and software teams to get on the same page. I was doing all of these things: - story writing (user stories, criteria, and tests) - wireframing and workflows - low-fi mockups in Sketch - information architecture - data/analytics research - technical guidance I had input on every step of the process, from running ideation meetings with clients to launching new apps. And my work product was always well received and useful to every team. So, I departed for a startup earlier this year, but realized quickly I wasn't missing deep coding. I came to realize I was missing the work I was doing outside of my management role. I read more about ux/product design and the type of work involved really spoke to me. So, now I'm trying to figure out that transition professionally.
twic 7y ago
I've worked with UX people who were extremely focused on users. Sometimes to the point that developers would wish they would just forget about them and knock out a UI design so they had something to implement.

jcomis 7y ago

Yikes. That's a problem when people conflate visual design and UX. Happens constantly. It's very easy to judge "good" visual design, so good visual designers tend to rocket into the ranks of UX/Product design without real knowledge of how to best design for user needs and goals.

pcurve 7y ago

That's a shame. You wouldn't be able to get away with that in most large companies where there are large and established ux practices. They, like other orgs have to justify their existence through value they deliver.

hombre_fatal 7y ago

That only reflects the quality of people you tend to work with. It's like saying engineers suck. I've worked with UX professionals who were the powerhouse behind amazing products and were sometimes the only people at the entire company batting for the end users (which is the point of the article). It really is a great experience to be a developer when there's a skilled UX designer working full-time on such a hard problem upstream from you. And it's a harder job than I think most people realize. Balancing UI with the constraints of being human friendly is its own class of engineering. Looking at all the UX turds that developers come up with because UX is hard, you'd think the top comment would be a bit more understanding or appreciative of UX work. I guess this hubris is why good UX is so rare, especially among "Show HN" projects. ;) BTW, the article doesn't trash UX professionals as unnecessary which is how you and other HNers want to interpret the title. Rather, the article does the opposite. It points out that ideally you strive for good UX at the systemic/organizational level, not just depend on some UX hotshots to save your ass.

dccoolgai 7y ago
I didn't offer any opinion as to whether the work of creating goid user experiences is _necessary_. Since you brought it up, I think that it most certainly _is_ - just that in my experience, people with "UX" in their title tend to be the most adversarial to that concern.
- achow 7y ago
  As parent mentions.. That only reflects the quality of people you tend to work with. Wherever you worked, may be they were low in design maturity ie., without optimal ux culture. There would be 100 such places for 1 that has robust design driven product development culture. Also, that place may be hiring poorly, which in turn reflects on the leadership of that place, and so on..
codyogden 7y ago
Oof...I feel you completely misrepresented the spirit of the original comment. They didn't speak in generalities, and they shared only their personal experience.

codyogden 7y ago

I've had the same experience as you're describing: graphic designers who believe user experience is the same thing as art direction. There is a whole level of learning they just don't get from the purely artistic, 'gut feeling' perspective. They can design beautiful branding, visuals, and print-ready elements, but it's seems hard for them to understand everyday users. I'm trying to move away from front end/software and into a more UX/Product design role. I think my experience is valuable because I have have good 'digital taste', user empathy, and desire to make data-driven decisions. I generally lack the graphic design skills of visual designers outside of wireframes and low-fi mockups, but I make up for it in the ability to bring together business, creative, and technology. UX is building a 'sweet spot' balance of those things.

varrock 7y ago
What made you want to make that transition from front-end software engineering into the UX role?
- codyogden 7y ago
  Sorry, this is a long answer. I haven't perfected my 'switch pitch' yet. lol I worked at a marketing agency from 2016-11 to 2019-06. Went from developer to 'Director of Software' in Jan 2019. Fancy title at a 15-person agency, really just part of the leadership team. I couldn't put my finger on what it was I wanted, and I thought I wanted to return to being an individual contributor to software. Management role was fine by itself, but I didn't feel like my seat had an end 'work product' result; and I also didn't feel valued since it was basically a dual role and was paid relatively poorly. Any given day, I was working with strategy (client), creative, marketing/copywriting, and software teams to get on the same page. I was doing all of these things: - story writing (user stories, criteria, and tests) - wireframing and workflows - low-fi mockups in Sketch - information architecture - data/analytics research - technical guidance I had input on every step of the process, from running ideation meetings with clients to launching new apps. And my work product was always well received and useful to every team. So, I departed for a startup earlier this year, but realized quickly I wasn't missing deep coding. I came to realize I was missing the work I was doing outside of my management role. I read more about ux/product design and the type of work involved really spoke to me. So, now I'm trying to figure out that transition professionally.

twic 7y ago

I've worked with UX people who were extremely focused on users. Sometimes to the point that developers would wish they would just forget about them and knock out a UI design so they had something to implement.