If UX is so human-centric, why do we call it “user experience”?
Over the last while my LinkedIn has been exploding with UX stories. The most common feature in my feed is the complaint about UX(user experience)and UI (user interface) being combined as they are very different skills and mindsets. The other common thing I see if the constant explanation of what user experience should not be categorized as, like how dare you call a UX designer a graphic designer.
In these stories there is obviously the common language of human-centered design approach to solve problems holistically, and doing it with the best design approach to create an amazing user experience or journey. Now I strongly feel that I am not, and probably will never be a UX designer. It is not a desire that I have and I believe a lot of that is due to the fact that I see a fundamental flaw in the industry (more to come on this in a few years).
This spring I had an interviewer ask me what my favorite type of creative was, without hesitation I said copywriters, because in my experience, it is an incredibly undervalued industry and a good copywriter can make an incredible difference.
With that said, I truly believe in the value of words. We often get so caught up in physical and system design elements that we totally forget about linguistics and the use of cultural references through communication. (I hope one day I can gain this skill but until then, nothing but appreciation.)
So back to UX. The process of design and creating these experience through a human-centric lens is incredibly popular and important. It is a great approach to understand the needs of the end user, how they might think, as well as behaviors and patterns. This approach has become very successful and is now being used in many industries beyond what we assume a traditional design or technology field may use it as. Over the last few years, people have started to really focus on human-centric approaches, but let me get into why this is important.
There is a mental health crisis in the world (not news), and a method that researchers and doctors have been seeing for patients with dissociation is using words to get through trauma. Meaning, trauma victims who have dissociation symptoms often use language to help them cope with the trauma they have experienced. And more simply, we do this at a normal level too. Think about the way we use the words to describe intercourse, calling it sex, love making, or fucking . These words mean very different things and they help us through a highly energetic, emotional, and very human experience by either making it casual or more intense depending on what we want.
So my query is that if we are using human centered design approaches to create experiences for people, are we calling them users as a way to help us get through our own complexities of trauma, privilege, or oppression to better use “design tools” without forcing us to confront our own psyche. Is it really a way for us to remove the people from the experience we are making something for?
