How Do You Explain UX?

Even though the space of UX is continuing to grow and enter into the mainstream job market, I have found that there still lacks an understanding of what it is that we truly do.?

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As the UX Designer that I am, I have learned to test my definitions each time I explain what my job is. What I have found, is that the best way to connect with others and have them truly understand has been by using analogies that I thought might resonate with them.?

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But I know I am not the only one who suffers from the blank stares when I say what it is that I do. I know there are many others out there who face this struggle too. That's why I wanted to call out two of my favorite ways to describe what it is that we do as a UX Designer.

Now for this newsletter, my comparisons will be quite in-depth, more so than what you would want to use in a conversation. But my goal is to give you the story to pick from so that you can adapt it to help your own specific instances.

The two analogies I love to use are cooking and skiing, two things that I love to do.

Analogy #1: Cooking

Cooking a meal for another individual includes three phases. Phase one involves thinking about what ingredients you can use. Does this person have any allergies? Are there some foods they just really don’t like? Either way, you want to make sure you pick a recipe that will cater to that person’s likes.??

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Phase two is the fun one, it’s where the actual cooking gets done! This is where you mix all the ingredients together, checking the flavors as you go. You can’t serve a dish that is too salty or under seasoned!?

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You didn’t just invite your guest to smell the aromas of your food, you invited them to eat too, so phase three is the plating. Although there is an art to plating a dish, I know many of us are not professional chefs. But, even as an ordinary chef, we all can understand the feeling of wanting to impress our guest with the look of our dish. Or if that is not you, at least you want to make it look appetizing.

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Now that we know our three phases of making and serving a dish, we can start to understand how they connect to UX. Just like we had to think about the ingredients we were going to use so the guest would like the dish, a UX Designer needs to understand who their end user is and what they will need to be satisfied. This involves understanding their needs, goals, and frustrations.

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As mentioned earlier, you may not want to copy that breakdown in a conversation as a way to explain what you do. Since if you do... well, you will probably lose the person you were talking to, let's be honest!

But, the reason I called it out is to give you an idea of how to relate a different topic to explain UX thought processes.

Analogy #2: Skiing

Skiing to many just looks like someone moving down a mountain on thin pieces of material at high speeds. When put that way it sounds fun, right?

Although that is the reality of it, there is a lot more strategy put into it at a professional or expert level. This can especially be understood on a run that has bumps or if using the proper terminology, moguls.?

When an expert skier reaches the top of a mogul run, before heading down it they plan out their entire route. They carve out their path from the top to the bottom, clearly outlining when they will make their turns. The reason for this is it allows them to stay balanced at their fast speeds so that they do not end up whipping out.?

Whereas, if we think about this from the standpoint of an average skier, they may think about their path at the start of the run but they will most likely end up stopping several moguls in. This tends to occur because they lose their balance and need to reset themselves so that they can regain control. Therefore in reality they are really following several different flows that will eventually create their one main path that gets them down the ski run.?

Just like in both of these instances, the expert and the average skier, a UX Designer needs to think about the flows they design for. They need to first understand who their audience is: are they dealing with the expert or the average skier? Then once that information is gained, they need to understand how to design the best path for them.

Whether it was with cooking or skiing, both examples explained how a UX Designer needs to understand who their intended audience is so that they can create an intended path for their product to work in. Now we all know, it may not be used all the time, but the idea is about understanding who is using the product to better set them up for success.

So if we go back to our initial idea of using these examples to explain your role, what you are really doing is explaining how you are helping the end user complete the task in a way that works best for them. In other words, you are explaining how you do both the research and design to help create a successful product.

All that is left to ask now, is how will you explain UX the next time you are asked?

AND... if you want to here more about this, check out Jeremy Miller 's latest episode of Beyond UX Design Podcast where we spend an entire 47 minutes on this!