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Are silos where UX goes to die?
Prototyping is a simple (not easy) catalyst for transformative change in UX
I recently stumbled across a 2008 article from David Verba, “Sketching in code: the magic of prototyping.” In this article he shares the benefits that prototyping brought to his projects. “With prototypes” he wrote, “the focus is always on the application and making it better, and it’s much easier to stay focused on value to the end user.”
David was ahead of his time.
He pointed me to a 2021 article by Jesse James Garrett, “UX design is more successful than ever, but its leaders are losing hope.” Jesse asks how we got to a point where “product design practices have become increasingly less insight-driven.” UX practices, he explains, “didn’t fit a development process that… has no space for foundational work that can’t be predictably packaged up into two-week units.”
I have been thinking about these two articles. The problems they describe are remarkably unchanged: Product and engineering silos; communication between them hampered by different languages and pacing; and business demands that leave out discovery. On the subject of that last problem, Suzanne Labarre recently wrote “Why corporate America broke up with design.” She points out that those business requirements and processes that leave discovery out often produce value. At least, often enough to make a business case.
It is a low tide moment for UX. Of course the tide always returns and companies will “rediscover” how important research and design are. But will our boats be ready to rise? Or will we repeat the same mistakes?
I feel we have been artificially fragmenting processes like discovery and research into their own (conveniently expendable) silos for a long time. These are known issues. Tanya Snook famously wrote about “UX theater” in 2018, pointing out processes where “[m]ore effort is spent on briefings that tell a user-centered story than on researching user needs and producing user-centered results.” A McKinsey report on the business value of design found four areas of critical value, three of them relating to breaking down silos and focusing on the user: cross-functional teams working together on user-centric solutions, continuous testing with…
