The current design and UX landscape from the POV of someone who stumbled into it

As the title states, I never really intended to work in the field of UX design. Truth be told, when I got into college I wasn't even aware that UX was an actual field of study that could be traced back to the 80's. 

Flashback sequence time!

Ten years ago, I was working as an impromptu mechanical engineer for a project. As we were designing the enclosures for the first trial version, we were introduced to a design team that would help us in making sure our concepts would actually survive putting them out in the wild. 

At this time, I was given a piece of advice that forever changed the way in which I designed things. 

The head designer listened to our telling of how our device was to be used and what maintenance it could require. He suggested that we add some extra space in the enclosures to include a basic toolkit with spares for the more specialized parts, noting that not many repair people would carry those around normally. 

This act of looking beyond the necessities of the product and company to also include the end user as an active part of the design process was an incredibly powerful revelation. It also felt incredibly natural and comfortable for me.

You see, my dad loved to cook and I enjoyed spending time in the kitchen with him. Something that got very ingrained in my upbringing was the joy one gets from providing others with the opportunity to have a pleasant time. Whether it be from good cooking, preparing a nice environment to hang out or just being a gracious host. So learning that the same principle could be applied when designing a product or a service was an incredible epiphany!

Considering how the users are impacted by a product even changed the way that I structured my work for graphic design and branding. Initially it makes the planning stages run a little longer, but the results obtained from always keeping the end user in mind are very much worth it. 

All in all, my journey through UX hasn't been that long. Ten years in and counting and I still feel like I have a bunch of things to learn, not to mention the excitement I get from seeing the role of design grow in importance on every aspect of the product life cycle makes me feel incredibly accomplished and eager to keep growing and learning every day. 

End of flashback

By now you may be thinking it's time I reel it back in and actually tackle the promises made by the title of this writing. 

As stated in the last paragraph, the design field is growing beyond being a single stage of a plan into something closer to a framework. Along with this change in product structuring, other design-centric disciplines, like UX/CX design, have proven to be highly beneficial for companies, big or small, to adopt into their workflows. I see these changes as a net positive, however, one thing to consider when something gets too popular too fast is that many times companies and people get something similar to FOMO and start trying to implement every single trend into their every day processes without analyzing what is it that they really need or if they actually even need to integrate anything at all. This also applies to people in a big way. 

When I got into UX ten years ago, most of the information I found online was written by people that fell into the role because of extra talents and responsibilities they possessed. Developers that had a knack for design and experience in different application fields, project managers that had lots of contact with stakeholders and customers, entrepreneurs that ran their own customer service lines and had direct feedback from users. 

As different as the roles and circumstances for each were, there was a big thread tying all of them up together. The one practically text book concept every HR person hiring a UX role expects to hear. 

Empathy. 

Empathy should always be the main drive for UX

Before UX courses were as widely available as they are today, the people in charge of the role usually had a natural tendency to think about how the users could be impacted by certain choices. That is to say, they were naturally empathetic. As the UX roles rose in demand, (and as a consequence so did the role availabilities), more people started considering UX as an alternative for career growth regardless of their actual thoughts on the end user. 

Please note that I'm not trying to discredit or single out people that study UX with career growth in mind. I actually think it's amazing that more people are tasked with making sure companies provide better services and products for their users. And I can personally attest to the effectivity of a well designed study plan. When I started teaching highschool students a couple of months back, there were some notable gaps in my knowledge that were very well covered by how the instruction planned for the topic was designed and allowed me to do a very competent job with my classes. 

Evaluating the last statement just by the end results produced, it could be concluded that a well established curriculum and learning path can make up for any lackings on the part of the person executing it, (whether it be me as a teacher or a new UX designer stepping into a role). However, there is one big problem I consider when "encasing" a subject within a path and that is it enables people to enact a process without any real passion or drive.

The perils of a well threaded path...

UX and design as disciplines undoubtedly produce great results for the companies that implement them and those results are reflected in customer satisfaction, retention and revenue. However, we should not forget that these two disciplines completely depend on real actual people and not only on  a method. 

UX shouldn't be reduced to a series of steps, processes and best practices. This goes double for the amount of AI assisted tools popping up daily in order to make those steps more efficient, and again, I do not mean to say that using AI is somehow damaging to the process. 

What I mean is that humans, people, users, however you choose to name them should always be the driving force behind every UX and design efforts. As long as you view and treat your users with respect and keep their interests as a focus in your development efforts, the rest of the pieces fall into place gradually and with awesome results. 

TL;DR 

As we get a better understanding of UX and design as disciplines, more tools and resources pop up every day that make it's implementation into our workflows a lot easier. However, it's imperative that we don't forget that the driving force behind these efforts are based in people, and treating design and UX as a series of best practices will not yield the results that are promised in writing. 

When a path is established, we forget to seek new roads and possibilities

Hopefully this write-up is useful or insightful to you, if not, I at least hopefully entertained you for a couple of minutes. 

As we move forward, Let's keep creating!