The Wall

Many of you may know that I'm writing Volume 2 of Navigating the Politics of UX with a target publication date in October. It will be my last book and I want to get it right.

The writing has been going well...until today when I hit a wall.

I've worked as a UX professional for over forty years. During this time, much has changed in the way we research, analyze, design, develop, and deploy products and services. I've adapted up to this point, but I've been out of the profession for the last four years and I'm no longer confident that what I have to say is still relevant. Hence the wall.

I know a lot about UX - its methodologies, its practice, and its politics. I've been a researcher, a designer, an analyst, a strategist, a consultant, a teacher, a director, and a change agent. From this experience - both successes and failures - I've composed a pragmatic and streamlined approach to UX that I'm writing about in my book.

But what if it doesn't work in today's UX environment? What if it is inspirational in theory but impractical in reality? I've already reached out to and interviewed a few UX professionals that I intend to include in the book as "other voices."

But I need more. I need to understand your realities as a UX practitioner in 2024.

As much as I'd like to change the way UX is practiced in today's business environment, I can't. I can't tell you this is the way you should do your job when your manager and your culture says otherwise. I believe I can adapt my UX approach to fit in today's reality, but I must first make sure I understand what that reality is. I have no desire to write a book that only works in the best of all possible worlds.

So here's what I'm asking: send a message to me at [email protected] and tell me what your reality is like. Are you working in Agile? Waterfall? Something else? Are you incrementally releasing new features every couple of weeks or working on a longer term projects? Do you have time and funding for research and discovery? Are you part of a large UX team or a solo artist? Is all your time spent ensuring the development team is running at 100% capacity? What are your biggest challenges? What's stopping you from doing UX the way you think it should be done?

If you take the time to respond (just a paragraph is fine), I'll include your name in the acknowledgements of my book (with your permission of course).

I hope to hear from you soon. I'll collect responses through September of 2024.