Three reasons to Designers not to use the term UX Designer

The term UX Designer is widely used in the Design environment. Nevertheless, as we can see below, it has some inconsistency with the concepts of design itself.

The term UX Designer is everywhere, from ads from large companies to profiles on LinkedIn. It is used by high professionals to describe their areas of practice in Design and by who knows, in most of the time, that the term is not entirely resolved to refer precisely to the skill performed.

However, they continue to use UX Designer to describe what they do because it is a term that has already been absorbed by the market and is correlated with professionals who deal with the User Experience in some way.

The purpose of this article is, therefore, to go through some concepts of Design, discuss the term UX Designer and finally, justify in three steps, the reasons why we should not use it.

And the first concept we need to understand is the concept of User Experience (UX) itself.

User Experience is related to the perception of the individual as a user of a product, system or service and with the pleasure and satisfaction evoked in contact with this artifact.
- (PREECE, ROGERS and SHARP, 2015)

User Experience has proven to be vital to all types of products and services, and if it is not positive, people will probably not use them any more (GARRETT, 2010). It is also observed that it is not restricted to digital environments, it occurs in the physical world and even in the invisible interfaces. It has become more debated in recent years because of the comprehensiveness of the digital elements to which we have contact, being very associated only with the digital medium. This view, however, has changed in the last years, with the growth of debates on the User Experience in the service environment, with fintechs, architecture decisions, business, etc.

In this way, we understand that the User Experience is an instance that occurs at the user level. The designer does not own it.

Reason 1 for not using the term UX Designer:

WE DO NOT DESIGN THE USER EXPERIENCE. WE DESIGN THE ELEMENTS THAT EVOKE THE USER’S EXPERIENCE

The User Experience itself is not created, but rather the conditions for it to be evoked (PREECE, ROGERS and SHARP, 2011). They are, in other words, the elements that make up the User Experience that are designed to lead to a better User Experience.

Observe the figure below. In it, each point represents an element that composes the User Experience.

As designers, we have access to some of these points. In this universe, we have, for example, Information Architecture (AI), Interfaces Design (UI) and Interaction Design (IxD), among other possibilities, like programming, etc.

We call UX Design the set of these projectable elements. They are those that are within reach of the designer. UX Design is therefore not the direct responsibility of any particular position, but the result of several combined knowledge.

UX Design is, above all, a culture that needs to be propagated in all elements of the experience, in the people responsible for developing them and also in the structures of a company.

Reason 2 for not using the term UX Designer:

UX DESIGN IS NOT A STAGE OF DESIGN AND IS NOT PERSONALIZED IN THE FIGURE OF A PROFESSIONAL IN SPECIAL.

There are, however, other elements that make up the User Experience, but that is outside, at that moment, of the direct performance of the designer. Among these points are, for example, aspects of the user’s personal life and elements that are under the responsibility of other areas of knowledge, such as mechanical engineering, sometimes programming, electronics and architecture, for example.

Reason 3 for not using the term UX Designer:

WE HAVE NO ACCESS TO ALL THE ELEMENTS THAT MAKE UP THE USER EXPERIENCE.

One could argue at this point that the term UX Designer refers only to those projectable elements that make up UX Design. However, it should be remembered that the User Experience is broader, composed of other components. Nor will it be restricted only to those moments of interaction with the projectable element. It occurs in the expectation of interaction and also post-interaction when the experience is recalled.

This means that even in those projectable elements, we do not have access to all the elements that evoke a particular user experience.

Our main task as a Designer: propagate the importance of Design Culture.

In essence, we are all just Designers. However, sometimes the specification of terms can contribute to communication and understanding between professionals and the market. For this reason, the term UX Designer should follow its trajectory, describing professionals who work on some scale with elements that make up the User Experience.

On the other hand, some terms seem to fulfill better the function of being a promoter of the User Experience concept globally, propagating the idea in the structures of the business and company, encouraging its practice.

We are talking about the Product Designer and the UX Strategist.

Generally speaking, will be the Product Designer and the UX Strategist who will understand the importance of User Experience Concept for a particular product and business and spread that idea all over the team.

Specifically, the Product Designer will make sure that all points that make Up the User Experience are reachable and on the same page. They will help to spread the UX Culture over the programming and other teams and the client culture itself.

At the same time, the UX Strategy will work be making sure that all those points are connected in a high level to the client business objectives and strategies, putting the user needs in the center of all business decisions.

Lets spread the UX Culture.