UX is a function, not a title

As of this writing I’ve spent three decades designing things, nearly all of them digital. For the past 19 years, the letters “UX” have been in my title in some form or another—about the same duration that folks with similar titles have debated what “user experience” is. As a cohort, we’re not very agreeable, except when it comes to navel-gazing. That’s a pastime we all agree on. Still, definitions evade us.

I’ve given a lot of thought to the question “what is UX design,” and I confess, I can’t do any better than what Jared Spool arrived at: design is the rendering of intent. There are two parts to this definition, render and intent. Rendering can take any form—pictures, of course, but also written words, spoken words, code, and even taste and smell (are chefs not designers of dinner?). And intent, of course, being the specific outcome you hope to achieve. So pictures of a beautiful UI. A working, highly performant app. A compelling story about fixing the US tax code. It’s an elegant definition, irreducible, and for some, problematic.

Not that those who find it problematic disagree with it, necessarily. Rather, problematic because it’s a threatening definition. If all one must do is “render intent” then what does that make me, the designer with training, with taste, with a title, with bona fides, with chunky glasses and a black tee, and with a “senior staff principal head of director designer” Linkedin title? Are we all designers now? Uh oh.

Here’s what I’ve seen in my 30 years of doing this: software engineers who’ve been using great software and working with designers long enough that they can intuit their way to great design without any training; product executives who put their finger on exactly what’s wrong with your design within 5 minutes of seeing it; sales staff who listen so intently that they can describe exactly what a customer needs without any further research or testing. It’s heresy! But these observations led to my personal evolution over the decade, one where I moved from the kind of designer I mention above—serious about my craft, and determined to prove that “Designers” were the only ones qualified to render intent—to someone who sees design as a function that shouldn’t be gate kept, who sees “user experience” as a big tent that everyone should get under, and “designer” as the title some lucky folks get to enjoy (for now). I’m far from the first to think this; Jared Spool arrives at the same conclusion. But it feels like an evolution not every designer experiences.

So, design is a function anyone can do. Some do it well, others, not. In any case, welcome everyone! YOU get a black tee! And YOU get a black tee! We’re all designers.