During the Copenhagen EuroIA conference of 2009 it became painfully clear to me how much the UX community can still suffer from clearly explaining what the purpose of the discipline is and what value it brings to clients and businesses. Any questions from the audience related to clarifying the true purpose of the UX discipline where too often answered with 'it depends...'!
This happened so frequently that a conference board member put a fine on presenters using those exact words. Although the fine was only a symbolic amount (50 cents), the number of violations was very high!
A Thin White Line
A Thin White Line – a pan European panel discussion held during the ’09 conference on the status of UX across countries in Europe – showed that a lot of colleagues are still involved in explaining what UX is and what the added value for clients can be. Often ‘explaining’ really means ‘struggling to explain’. Unfortunately our clients apparently still have trouble understanding the need for UX. Whose fault is that really?
Vague message?
Let’s approach this from two extreme angles. Either UX really serves no purpose at all, or the community sucks at explaining the purpose! I have a tendency to opt for the second option for a clear reason: I simply refuse to believe that I have been active in a discipline for more than ten years that serves no purpose! So it must be our own message that is somewhat vague!
Ça depends!
With the upcoming EuroIA event in Paris I am hoping to hear a unified message of the reason of existence of the UX discipline. Surely it should not depend on anything anymore...