In order to understand the makeup of the User Experience (UX) Director, we need to look back at the origins and evolution of the profession. In the not so distant past, in order to bring a product to market a company needed to hire a variety of designers and marketers, a product placement expert and a number of other people working diligently to put the product on the shelf of a brick and mortar entity. With the advent of online commerce a brand new set of professionals was called in, some with similar expertise in an online environment and some new ones. In many cases an entire online marketing team is the key to bringing your product to market and assure the success of your product.
15 years ago companies focused on creating an online presence and little thought was put into the organization of the information. We have come a long way since and entire businesses now operate exclusively online. What makes some of these businesses more successful than others is the quality of the experience.
Today the UX director does not only have a seat at the table but is a client partner and internal leader of one of these teams comprised of designers, strategists, information architects, usability experts and researchers. The UX director partners with a Creative Director, Tech lead, client team and anyone else whose role is key to the success of the project.
UX Directors have varied backgrounds but share a unique trait. When they are confronted with a challenge, they are able to:
- Step back and see the big picture;
- Evaluate all the inputs: client, customer/consumer and technical;
- Provide a clear assessment of the situation.
UX Directors tend to be analytical thinkers and formerly held the title of Information Architects (IA). It is less common to see UX Directors come from the design focus. The reality is that the UX Director must be able to assess a situation both logically and creatively, but does not need to be a trained designer even though UX is often lumped in with creative groups. It is a job requirement of the UX dir to keep his team of UXers on track with their activities. In fact recently there has even been a strong push to teach UX professionals to venture into coding, in some organizations it is in fact a requirement. However, while it is important for a UXer to understand what is possible to do with code, this expertise is best left to the team of coders that diligently work side by side with you. While broadening their horizons is often a good idea it may unfortunately dilute their ability to focus on the big picture, since they are so far in the weeds.
In order for the UX practice to succeed it must be is a standalone discipline with the freedom to operate independently from other groups, serving as a partner as opposed to another sub-group. A UX professional from the most junior to senior should be concerned with being an integral part of the team where everyone has a clear job and affinity to another of the required activities. Some UXers may lean towards code, some towards research and others towards design. But their number one priority should always be to enforce the delicate balance among business wants, user needs and technical feasibility.
It is probably the single most important mandate of the UX director within the organization to assemble a team that can function in that fashion and partner with others. Their second task is to weed out the members that are not able to conform to the established rules of engagement. The UX director may be experienced in one or more areas of focus but they must be experts in their field. They must be able to quickly absorb and disperse all information that a project requires. They must be able to guide and mentor. They must setup reasonable goals and constantly iterate.
A UX director must be able to analyze a situation, simplify the learnings, and provide a workable solution.
Interesting post, Giovanni.
I think we do ourselves a disservice when we talk in terms of roles, instead of skills. I agree with all the statements in the article where you talk about the skills necessary to direct a UX process within an organization.
However, I’m not sure that labeling those skills as UX Director, then asserting that people who don’t have those skills as unfit for that role helps anyone. It feels like a political land grab and will only serve to divide.
I’m also not a fan of statements like “the single most important mandate of the UX director within the organization to assemble a team that can function in that fashion and partner with others.” In fact, I’ve seen organizations that have succeeded by acting in the opposite direction: Instead of creating a centralized UX team, they’ve ensured that everyone in the org has sufficient UX skills, so UX was built into the culture. With UX throughout, there was no need for a service team, which would eventually become a bottleneck in the organization.
I’m more interested in the skills necessary to bring great UX into an organization than I am in trying to define a structure of roles that somehow magically make UX happen.
@Jared
Hi Jared, you are definitely right. You have probably seen and dealt with many organizations that struggle or are successful at delivering UX. My views are limited to only a few organizations I have been part of where politics reigns supreme, and it takes energy away from a successful delivery.
For the past 2 years I have been working in an Agile environment and the roles are many times reversed and politics is at a minimum, and at the end of the day we walk away feeling good about the work we have done. The results have impacted our customer base much more than anticipated.
IMHO, good UX leaders should be modeled like 19th century sea captains. Ship captains back in the day started out cleaning the ship, then graduated up to the guns, then trimming the sails, onto navigation etc … Till they knew every inch of a ship and how it worked. Likewise UX leaders should have some experience in every aspect of creating a website and making it successful. Sure you don’t have to be the expert in all areas but you need to know how it all works from programming, (yes programmers the original informational architects) to design and even marketing. Defining roles, managing people, being a mentor and communicating across the company is not a UX Leader specific skill, rather those are skills that all managers need.
Aren’t a lot of activities in companies political land grabs?
If your breathing your political, no doubt someone else would like your air.
I have given up on trying to define things, not because it’s not important, but because clients don’t seem to care about the quality of what they get.
Some companies have embedded UX concepts while others are dismissive call UX a fad, or worse something they tried but that failed to deliver anything extra.
Great article. I specifically enjoy the emphasis you made about the UX Director being an analytical problem solver rather than a creative designer. Far too many times I’ve had portfolios cross my desk for similar roles that only showcase the end result rather than the process one went through to achieve the result (I’ve been guilty of this myself). Thanks for the early morning read.
As the UX creature upwardly evolves to a standing upright stature in organizations that only a short time ago couldn’t spell UX, the cluster of must haves in their skill list is becoming quite lengthy. Just as we find unicorns have difficulty focusing across the spectrum of visual design, IA, usability analysis, and coding all at once, the same is true vertically. There is this problem of where to focus. There can only one fovea at a time.
Making great UX design within a given organization and redesigning the organization to be one that makes great UX design are both huge tasks and each require unique focus and choosing of different battles to fight with different trade-offs and acceptable risks. A designer who stops to reinvent the organization and process at every turn will fail to deliver on the tactical priorities. A director doing it all themselves is not a director.
Freedom to focus on the strategic is probably the biggest gain in the UX world today. The role which was formerly an appendage is now part of the core. Its a great opportunity, however, being all things to all people can still kill it. It is probably time to parse the UX profession vertically at least as good as we do horizontally. I say that tongue in cheek since we know that too remains a struggle. Indeed, there are cases to be made for various models of each in different settings. All of this will continue to change and change again.
People like Jared have had a big picture UX focus for years. Perhaps Jared is the perfect model for what a UX director ought to be.
– roger
This article brings focus to so many aspects of UX and the strategic context that needs to be the key strength of the Director.
Mediocrity is so abundant and demand for UX (and also UI Engineering) is so high that we’ve spawned a generation of people who start, but rarely close out. They’ve moved before a problem has been solved in entirety.
UX is not a task, nor an artefact that needs to be produced. It is strategy, it is vision. It is the relentless pursuit of continuing to improve systems and remove roadblocks. What irks me is it is looked at as a one time effort.
Thanks for starting a great conversation. Jared’s point is also bang on, but often times lines have been drawn and it’s almost always someone else’s problem to solve for. Till today, in some pockets, UX and design are considered to be roadblocks to shipping stuff faster. This needs to change. Like yesterday.