• I’m not a UX Designer, and neither are you?
  • This article is authorized by Ben Moss, the original author
  • The Nuggets translation Project
  • Translator: MAYDAY1993
  • Proofread by Kulbear Hpoenixf

In recent years the term user experience has come to the fore, and with it we have seen the rise of UX designers.

Every few months someone posts a pair of status pictures, one of a cookie (labeled ‘UI’) and the other of a smug face eating a cookie (labeled ‘UX’). A few weeks later, a bona fide article will appear in the press, rebutting the tweet by arguing that the correct definition of ‘UI’ is a cup of tea with a biscuit.

These metaphors come into play because “UI design” has become a very broad term to describe a process that we’re still trying to define.

UX cannot be designed

Well, it can… In some marginal cases…

A roller coaster designer, for example, can be said to be designing experiences. Roller coasters are a sensory-driven experience; With extreme variations in gravity, balance, sound, and air pressure, on a thrilling ride you rarely notice that often all you see is the back of the seat in front of you. Roller coasters are an experience that can be designed because the variation in the experience is limited. But even then, we can’t control the length of the line, the weather, or the number of strawberry milkshakes the kid next to you eats before you get on.

You might say that a film director is a UX designer, sitting in a cinema watching a film, and we are preoccupied with a single linear narrative. Assuming no one interrupts the call, everyone in the audience will experience the same emotional highs and lows for more than two hours.

One of the first analogies I remember hearing about UI vs.UX was a bike: UI is a bike, frame, handlebars, tires, etc.; UX is the experience of coasting downhill. But unless I plan a cycle lane, or design a cycle lane as an urban planner, I can’t design a cyclist’s experience; I can’t control the traffic, I can’t control the terrain, I can’t control the other people on the road.

I can design a UI (a bike) that works in as many situations as possible, but I can’t design UX (the behavior of riding a bike), that’s left to the user.

UX is never monolithic

UX is not a fantasy, it is integral to every site and application. One of the mistakes people make is to believe that there is a single designable user experience.

We can design for the user experience. We can create explicit, functional UIs to enable micro-interaction and resonant content. We can create a framework that generates user experience, but we can’t design user experience.

We can create a framework within which user experiences can occur, but we cannot design them

In school we learn that there are five senses: sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell. As we get older, we learn that the definition of feeling is a little fuzzy; Hunger, balance and temperature can all be considered non-traditional senses. Some psychologists believe there are more than 20 senses.

A print design may involve several traditional senses: sight, touch, and possibly smell. A website usually contains one or two types: visual and audio. So we can design at most two-fifths of the user experience. If we factor in feelings of non-traditional meaning, the actual experience of the users we can influence can be as low as 5%.

I don’t know what background music will play when someone visits my site, I don’t know where they were before or where they will be after, AND I can’t control the length of the experience or the level of attention. UX is a very personal thing, not only unique to each user, but also different with each user context change.

Responsive design often focuses on different view sizes, but there’s more to it than that: connection speed, screen resolution, and environmental influences (such as light intensity) are all factors beyond our control. The core principle of responsive design is to treat change as an inherent feature of the medium, not as a limitation.

The natural extension of responsive web design is a responsive user experience that does not design UX, but creates a framework that generates UX. By designing for UX, rather than designing UX itself, we design tools for users to develop their own experiences. By putting the process in the hands of users, they are fully engaged in defining their relationship to a product or service in their own way.

By avoiding designing a UX, we create a more open, average, and attractive site.

UX vs. Ergonomics

Typography has a lot to do with legibility and readability. In other words, it has a lot to do with the act of absorbing information. The user experience of reading a book extends far beyond typography, it extends to every ounce of weight, the feel of the paper, the smell of the binding, and it encompasses all aspects of using a book.

We don’t print a book in 2pt because the words are too small to read. We don’t print a book at 200pt because there are very few words on a page. Ergonomics is the act of designing for humans, finding a human-centered and critical point from which to proceed. It’s always part of the design.

Designing for humans does not mean designing human behavior. UX is the result of design; An end result, not a process.

Stay away from the grass

One of the most famous UX memes is a trail with grass. Sometimes there is a gate, and sometimes the path simply turns at a right Angle. In all cases, the path is marked ‘Design’ and the muddy path through the grass marked ‘UX’ by numerous footprints.

Like the cookie metaphor, the Trail meme continues the myth that UI is about limiting the user, while UX is about freedom and enjoyment.

Designing for humans, does not mean designing the act of being human

This meme conveniently ignores this point, although walking on grass may leave footprints, walking on cement does not. For every person who walks on grass, there are probably tens of thousands who don’t.

The wrong idea about UX is that there is a certain user experience, and that through the exploration of a large number of users, a single ‘right’ path will emerge.

We don’t control a user’s background, and we shouldn’t try. Websites and apps are not movies, or events. Truly successful UX is not designed, it happens when users interact with a given framework in their own way.

One of the most successful movie franchises of all time is Star Wars, not because of the movies themselves, but because of the toys. Star Wars is not about hours of linear storytelling, but an extended world in which fans can play out their own stories. Without that extension, George Lucas could have been The Last Starfighter.

Good design is about implementation participation. As a designer you can seek that kind of engagement, but you can’t force it. UX is a private affair, created by the user’s stimulated ideas.

We’re not movie directors, roller coaster designers, or novelists; We are facilitators: we clean up the popcorn; We hit ‘launch’; We set the type. It may not be amazing, but it’s good work.

I’m not a user experience designer, I’m a designer, and so are you.