In no objective sense were things better for UX [in 2010]. Most companies didn’t know it existed. Most who did, drastically underinvested in it. Those who were willing to invest in it were savvy enough to listen to thought leaders, but that was a paltry percentage of the real work to be done.
What’s happened by 2021 is that UX is not interesting in and of itself anymore. UX is a given. As Joe Lamantia said in a mailing list I’m on, “it’s furniture.” And the challenges and frustrations people are expressing are largely due to this maturation.
We’re moving from “the dream of UX” to “the reality of UX.”
PEOPLE ARE NOT THEIR JOB TITLES.
TEAM MEMBERS ARE NOT “RESOURCES”.
PEOPLE WORK BEST WHEN THEY CAN BE THEIR FULL SELVES.
YOU CANNOT CALCULATE AN ROI FOR DESIGN.
FRAMING THE PROBLEM IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN SOLVING THE PROBLEM.
(DESIGN) LEADERSHIP IS MORE TALKING THAN DOING.
YOU’LL DO A BETTER JOB IF YOU LIGHTEN UP
IF YOU HAVEN’T PISSED SOMEONE OFF, YOU’RE NOT DOING YOUR JOB RIGHT.
NO ONE OUTSIDE YOUR TEAM UNDERSTANDS WHAT IT TAKES TO DO GOOD WORK.
THE OUTCOMES ARE BETTER WHEN EVERYONE IS A DESIGNER.
AGILE TRANSFORMATIONS ARE HOSTILE TO GOOD DESIGN.
WHAT A DESIGN TEAM NEEDS MOST IS A CLEAR SENSE OF PURPOSE.
YOU ARE ON THE FRONT LINE OF A GLOBAL WAR FOR TALENT.
EVERYONE APPLYING FOR A ROLE HAS AN INFLATED TITLE.
INTERVIEWS ARE A POOR WAY OF ASSESSING CANDIDATES.
DESIGN EXERCISES ARE A BAD INTERVIEWING PRACTICE.
YOU WILL NEVER HAVE ENOUGH DESIGNERS.
YOU WILL NEVER HAVE ENOUGH TIME.
THE SKILLS THAT GOT YOU HERE ARE NOT THE SKILLS THAT WILL CARRY YOU FORWARD.
The open web is much like emergent, unplanned cities — it happens at the scale of the individual, it allows for unexpected creativity, it gives agency to anyone (well, anyone with sufficient technical knowledge) to shape their own spaces. On the other hand, the platforms that now dominate much of the web experience are more evocative of Moses’s planned cities—they often occur at the scale of the corporation, and have rigid, predictable constraints for how individuals can behave and express themselves.