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.
I worked for several years as a leader of birding tours, and I have met a few sad individuals who were so focused on adding to their life lists that they would refuse to look at a bird species that they had seen before, no matter how spectacular the view or how fascinating its behavior of the moment might be. “I don’t need that bird” was their standard reply.
For a person just getting started in some area of natural history, and unabashed focus on list-chasing is a good thing, at least for a while. The trick is knowing when to stop.
Keith Brown described how he got the idea “that the maximization of daily species lists of butterflies, a seemingly unscientific goal (though much employed in a sister area, ornithology), could give a large scientific fallout."
For example, he described how six weeks’ effort in the Brazilian central plateau had turned up twenty-five species previously unknown for the area—but then he had adopted the “maximization” method, and in another six weeks, he had found nearly three hundred more species.