"UX" Really is the WHOLE user experience.

As an IT Professional I am painfully aware that I work in an industry that ABSOLUTELY LOVES jargon. We thrive on acronyms and buzzwords, so much so that we periodically redefine things that we have already previously defined YEARS before with new acronyms when the old ones get stale. Being involved in a job search again at the moment, which I have done so MANY times before as a contractor over my 30+ years in the business, I am encountering another curious trend that has me shaking my head. I mean, we all know that from a tech standpoint, what’s old is new again and what’s new is just a new name for the same old thing in most cases. Today we talk about AI, machine learning and UX as if we hadn’t heard about 100 other technologies that were going to make “programmers obsolete”. And yet these are the centerpieces of what we see as “job requirements” these days, created generally by Human Resource personnel who never wrote a line of code, and who at best VAGUELY understand what the IT professionals they recruit do. Maybe a bit harsh, but when I see job requirements claiming to require 9 years experience in a technology that was release for use in June 2016, it becomes apparent that either someone is clueless or failed date arithmetic in programming school miserably. But lets focus on another EXTREMELY popular buzzword these days, namely “UX”. The latest buzzword for “User Experience”. What does that mean? Well, ostensibly, it refers to user interface design. The ease of use, visual and aesthetic nature of a user interface, its intuitiveness, streamlining and how effortless it makes the task of completing the information exchange at the heart of most applications. In short, how engaging the experience of using it is. But if we take it at face value, and divorce it from its pure technological connotations ( something which we tech people often overlook) it SHOULD mean a great deal more. Let me give you an ostensive description of what I mean by using a parable (which may or may not have actually occurred to persons who may or may not actually exist and write LinkedIn posts). Once upon a time, there was a VERY large company known to the technology world for their robust and capable cloud infrastructure products, but which BECAME a VERY big company as a result of ANOTHER line of business, namely logistics and direct marketing. I won’t mention names, suffice it to say they were name after a mythical tribe of fierce female warriors, of which the legendary Wonder Woman was said to be a part. This enterprise employed some of the best and the brightest , and was adept at innovating and evolving, which led to its meteoric rise due mostly to how well they employed technology to further their business ( hence the eventual move to also being a technology supplier and Tech giant). One of their most impressive and desirable innovations was the logistical feat of being able to deliver a great many products next day, sometimes even same day. ??Along those lines, they introduced availability of delivery by 8am the next day, even when products were purchased online in the late hours of the previous day. A win for everyone, and very well designed from the user interface side in the spirit of “UX”. But was it? You see, in reality, some of those products which were delivered with such expedience were, well lets say, “sought after”, by young, hip and sometimes, less than affluent and scrupulous members of the buying public. The propensity to claim the merchandise was not delivered to avoid paying for it became a headache for this giant company. In response, ?somewhere in the hallowed halls of middle management, someone came up with the idea that, for those products, a buyer would actually have to MEET the delivery driver and supply a code that had been emailed to them in order to take delivery. Thus, supposedly, eliminating any possibility of claiming the products had “disappeared”. Problem solved right? Well not really. You see, as is so often the case, the “management” side of the company turns to the “technology” ?side of the company with a “solution” and says, apologies to Captain Picard, “make it so”. (Woo-hoo! Geek points squeezed in for the Star Trek reference). The IT folks then make it their business to do so without question, and their focus on “UX” extends simply to the esthetics of how the controls will look on the screen and how the related notifications will look and be sent, etc. And thus REAL “UX” is out the window like throwing the baby out with the bath water. You see, real “UX” means thinking about what happens AFTER the user presses the keys on the keyboard and completes the mouse clicks. After they turn off the computer and sit down to dinner or to watch TV or to the ball game. How the thing they initially CAME TO the computer to accomplish plays out. In this case, the IT guys decided they would send a notification to the customer informing them that a code would be required to receive that particular package. But only when they actually sent the code. Which was done by an offline process, which IT folks know generally are part of batch processes and run at off hours. In this case, in the VERY early hours of the morning between 1 and 3 AM. This resulted in the user RECEIVING said email at roughly 3 AM. But that’s OK. They don’t have to read it right away, right? Well yeah, unless they REQUESTED that OTHER feature. You know the one about getting their package before 8 Am? Because then, the logistic crew that handles getting that product to them, gets started rolling JUST AS they are getting that email about how the driver is going to knock and ask for a code in order to leave the package. So, roundabout, say, 4AM, the driver is going to place a call to the customer. ??He will tell the groggy half asleep customer that he is on his way, and that they should be ready to receive the package and provide the code. All of which the customer, until they get that annoying 4am call, hadn’t put together. And neither did the genius who came up with this “great idea”. And so the user gets awakened from a deep sleep at 4 AM so that he can read the email, go outside in his slippers and pajamas, while trying to keep his dogs from losing their minds and waking the entire neighborhood, to yell at a driver while he reads him the code FROM the email he just got at 3 AM in order to get his ear buds. The driver, of course, is pissed, and says he’s just doing his job. The customer is pissed and wondering what GENIUS thought this process up, and how badly he really wants those earbuds. (All of this is theoretical, of course. Any similarities to any actual customer or driver is merely coincidence). And all of this despite the laser like focus on “UX”. My question for you is this. What would you say this customer would consider the “UX”? Would it be the nice colors the cool CSS and SAS, JavaScript libraries, icons and responsiveness of the website when he decided to buy those ear buds and request a pre 8am delivery? Or the fact that he was dragged out of his bed at 4AM to take delivery of a product he paid for ?because some brilliant exec wanted to reduce pilferage by requiring a code be provided on delivery. And that NO ONE, not the management guy, not the IT guy, not the programmer who boasted about his extensive experience in “UX” on his resume, had the presence of mind to think that the combination of these two “features” might be something you’d want to advise a customer about the consequences of. And to provide him with a more timely “never mind, deliver it at 10AM” option? I’m guessing the latter. And so it goes. My point is this. Being able to write code, create a PowerPoint presentation, run a Scrum, host infrastructure on the web or set up “continuous improvement” is all of little value unless we realize the ultimate objective of all of this technology. Unless we acknowledge that no matter how technical, non-technical, administrative or supervisory our roles are, ALL of it is secondary to the commitment to provide the SERVICE and PRODUCT the user pays for in a manner that will make him want to CONTINUE to do business with our companies. The rest is just window dressing. So perhaps, just spit balling here, but perhaps, we need to include less emphasis on the encyclopedic knowledge of a technology or buzzword that is here today, gone tomorrow. Perhaps we need to focus more on communication and cultivating the EXPERIENCE to create solutions that ACTUALLY SERVE the customer. That provide an OVERALL user experience he will be satisfied with. And what does that mean? Most often it means an experience he won’t even think about and will take for granted. Yep, it’s a thankless profession. But if you’re doing it right, that’s the perfect “UX”. The one that makes you invisible.