I find it ironic, in my own recent experiences, that we’ve so long wanted attention to the subject and now that it’s gaining attention, I find that I’m spending even more time clarifying and defending UX’s purposes : )

Too many individuals are jumping in, grabbing some practices (including many that we have either largely abandoned or now have very specific caveats for), and start wielding them at us. I unexpectedly find myself arguing with hiring managers about what it is that I do — which obviously doesn’t go over well.

Indeed, in a more recent case, when being asked how I would typically start a project (a horrible request when you have little to no context), most of the activities I mentioned were all focused on assessing purpose. I was slapped down for not starting with some other deliverable that was relevant in the last role he played, but not in this one.

Sigh. Conversations like these need to continue. Thanks for raising these points.

“To put it simply, what matters is purpose, not experience. Who cares about experience if one’s purposes are not accomplished? Achieve the user’s purposes (which include all the desired qualities of great usability, aesthetic appeal, and inter-personal relationship qualities as criteria for satisfying those purposes), and the experience will take care of itself.

I couldn’t agree more…

(Caveat: I’ve never worked in an actual Agile environment, but I’ve worked in places that bandied about the term “Agile” or “Agile-lite”, while admitting that really it was about keeping the veeps happy with more output for less money.)

In my circle of UX pro friends and colleagues, I think it’s safe to say that none of us have found an effective way to integrate true UCD processes into anything resembling “Agile”. That’s simply because the two philosophies are incompatible. Here’s how:

Agile is based on the premise of building actual code without first designing or specifying a model of that code. UCD (and most other forms of traditional software development, as well as physical architecture, industrial design, etc.) is based on the idea of first making a model of the thing before building the thing. It just makes intuitive sense to plan and test low-cost, low-risk prototypes before devoting considerable engineering efforts into constructing the manifest product.