Tackling UX theatre: What designers can do

Cartoon of a person standing at the head of a table and pointing to a drawing. 3 other people are visible. They are writing, pointing and listening.

UX Theatre is the application of any sort of design methodology without including a single user in the process, or including users but merely for show.

You’ve heard about it. In fact, you’re living it. And you wonder: what can I do about it?

Let’s start with the two main reasons I think we have UX Theatre:

  1. User experience (UX) design is a large and vague concept to define. When executives adopt the term “user experience,” their teams aren’t necessarily empowered to do all the work that user experience design entails. Designers find themselves on understaffed, wrongly staffed, or underfunded teams. Or worse, working as a team of one (the solitary “UX unicorn.”)
  2. Design is touted as something everyone can do. When organizations adopt the perspective that “everyone is a designer,” user experience design is less recognized as a practice led by skilled practitioners and perceived more as a thought process that anyone can adopt and implement. This can lead to a superficial (or no) application of user-centered design on projects.

With that in mind, what can we do about UX theatre both as individual designers and design leaders in our organizations? I propose that there are six ways designers can tackle UX Theatre:

  1. Call out UX Theatre and offer alternatives
  2. Combat resistance with information
  3. Make design participatory
  4. Focus on learning and growth
  5. Design your design team
  6. Evangelize to the executive level
  7. Make UX advocacy your job

That might be an intimidating list, so let’s take a detailed look at each one.

1. Call out UX Theatre and offer alternatives

Organizations might not even realize that they are performing UX Theatre. We can call attention to it and identify opportunities for user input, helping the organization learn how and when to consider users in the design process. In order to do this in a constructive way, start by being fascinated: that means approaching bad UX from the perspective of critique instead of criticism.

Examples:

  • Identify risks related to designing without users.
  • Push for research-based decision-making over opinion-based.
  • Encourage a move from design thinking to user-centered design.
  • Demonstrate how to improve a linear or waterfall approach with continuous improvement that relies on user input instead of testing just at the end.
  • Document what the team isn’t doing as much as what they are doing. For every step that does not include user validation, include a short description of the methodology and explicitly state that this work was completed without including users in the process.

2. Combat resistance with information

Teams might be dismissive, especially if the design and development processes are rooted in the organizational culture and considered effective. (“This is how we always do things.”) We can look at the roots of the behaviour and decisions that are causing UX Theatre to determine how best to help our teams grow and learn. Treat them like users: empathize and study what they know, what they have right or wrong, and what they are open to hearing. Then create a learning opportunity: write something, run a workshop, give a presentation, hold a discussion. Start as big or as small as you need to in order to build momentum.

Teaching opportunities don’t have to be confined to your own organization. If there isn’t space to be heard inside your organization, you can write an article or even a Twitter thread about your experience (without identifying details :), and post it for the broader UX community. By writing about it, you and the UX community can learn from the experience as well.

Examples:

  • Invite participants to a workshop to learn empathy mapping and explain how it can serve the design process to better understand user tasks and goals.
  • Create a team UX library with a variety of UX books. In meetings and design sessions, refer to the methods and tools in the books to demonstrate how to incorporate UX into your design process.
  • I originally decided to write about UX Theatre in a Twitter thread because I saw the trend emerging across several projects and I wanted to start a conversation to see if it was prevalent in the broader industry or just my organization. (Spoiler: it’s everywhere 🙂

3. Make design participatory

UX Theatre tends to appear when organizations minimize (or don’t understand) the value of user-centered design. One way to combat or prevent UX Theatre is to actively involve anyone who has to use, own, manage, and/or deliver a design in the design work. When stakeholders are involved in the process of design, they gain a better appreciation for how design decisions are made and how important it is to involve the user throughout the process. Everyone isn’t a designer, but everyone can participate in design when it is led by skilled user experience practitioners.

Examples:

  • Co-design with non-designers: Involve stakeholders to participate in the decisions behind the design through collaborative working sessions, workshops, critiques, etc.
  • Don’t treat designs as precious: In collaborative sessions, participants should have a safe space to break the design, look for potential problems, and critique constructively. This will help stakeholders feel heard and that their contribution matters.
  • Teach UX while you do UX: Training people on UX methods is an extension of using the methods. In collaborative sessions, expose collaborators to a variety of UX methodologies and tools. Show them how, not just what. Offer to show how the methods work if they want to apply them on their own.
  • Break down perceived barriers: Show people how to do user research or apply user centered methods within existing constraints. Give people explicit permission to do the things they know are right but think they can’t do, like talking to users.

4. Focus on learning and growth

UX Theatre can indicate a learning gap in the organization and highlight a lack of understanding about how to properly apply design methods and tools. Rather than getting frustrated in the face of UX Theatre, we can foster a learning-focused culture. We can make ourselves available as a resource to support and guide our peers in adopting better UX practices, even if it is too late on the current project. The most productive reaction is excitement: get excited that they are interested in UX even if they have gotten it wrong. Use their interest as an opportunity to teach.

Examples:

  • During the project: bring case studies of similar projects and examples of UX methodologies to meetings. Use these real-world examples to demonstrate how UX can be incorporated into a project and open a discussion to find opportunities to better integrate user-centered design.
  • After the project: participate (or even arrange!) a lessons learned session to review how UX Theatre surfaced in the project, and discuss approaches to prevent it on the next one.
  • Evaluate the outcomes of the UX theatre process and identify risks to watch for in future projects.

5. Design your design team

UX Theatre tends to surface in organizations where the UX practice is immature. Good design teams are themselves designed. Designers can provide advice and recommendations to help our organization introduce or mature its UX practice.

Examples:

  • Identify the resources required to deliver what is being requested: We can remind our executives that UX has many facets and hiring a unicorn or a couple of resources is not going to generate UX magic. One, two, or three people cannot generate all of the value of a proper UX team.
  • Hire strategically: If you can only afford a single UX unicorn, make them an advisor and outsource the actual hands-on work. Build a team by hiring senior people first, and outsource the detailed work while the junior positions are staffed. Hire for the range of skills that matches the breadth of the design work to be completed (research, facilitation, interaction design, visual design, service design, etc).
  • Push for qualified hires: Encourage the organization to hire skilled designers, and not just promote people who show an interest in UX. While interested people can join to grow UX skills, qualified and experienced designers should lead design work.

6. Evangelize to the executive level

When we have the ear of the executive, we have a significant opportunity to highlight UX Theatre and explain how to prevent it, through our words and our actions. In fact, user experience designers are in the best position to prevent or resist against UX Theatre because the role of UXer seems to be evolving into a hybrid of design delivery and change management. We can use this space to evangelize for UX.

Examples:

  • Explain the process: Don’t just dazzle executives and decision-makers with final products. Explain how the work is created and the steps required to achieve useful results. Demonstrate that UX is not magic; that in order to create a user-centered design, work has to be done, and it needs time and money.
  • Negotiate the scope of work: When executives make requests, be clear about what the team can deliver for the time and resources they are willing to allocate. Explain the scope, the resources and the time required to produce the desired results.

7. Make UX advocacy your job

Design advocacy takes a lot of effort, and recognizing it as work is a key step in evolving the design maturity of an organization. Training and supporting your peers should be recognized as part of your day to day tasks, not an optional add-on to your already bursting workload. For your own career advancement, approach your participation in the UX community as a training opportunity, in which you can learn and develop with other UXers both formally and informally.

Examples:

  • Get credit for your work: Design advocacy is work. Discuss how it can be included in your job description and even built into your performance agreement.
  • Consider advocacy as a career choice: Many designers move from designing to advocating and clearing the path so that others can design. These jobs can include coaching designers, change management and moving into leadership or management.
  • Participate actively in the community: Attend (and even present at!) UX community events and conferences. Include these in your training plan (both the attendance and the presentations!). Contribute to the community and lean on it for support. External recognition can help you get permission to advocate inside your organization and even help you get recognition in a more formal way.

This sounds like a lot of work.

You might find yourself working in a UX mature organization, only to find yourself doing UX Theatre once again when the company priorities change, leadership transitions, or when you move to a new job. Whether you are quietly working behind the scenes or taking a prominent role in design advocacy, you make progress toward cultural change with every conversation and action you take to tackle UX Theatre.

That said, you won’t save every organization or every project. And that’s ok.

Your organization might not be ready to hear what you have to say, but that doesn’t mean you’re wrong; you’re just not in the right place at the right time. Consider yourself and cut your losses if the return isn’t worth the effort or if you are seeing diminishing returns. Take care of yourself and your own energy.

UX Theatre is an open secret in the user experience industry that no single person will be able to solve on their own. However, each of us can play a part to make sure our organizations aren’t just acting like they’re doing user-centered design.

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