The Evolution of Roles in UX and the Impact of AI

On this week's Boagworld Show, we're exploring how UX design leaders can take control of their roles within organizations, why UX agencies might feel doomed (but probably aren't), and how AI is reshaping the way we code and collaborate. We'll dig into practical strategies for UX leaders, share insights on the changing landscape for UX agencies, and provide guidance for navigating AI in your workflows.

App of the Week

This week's recommendation is UXPressia, a powerful yet easy-to-use visualization tool. UXPressia helps teams collaboratively create customer journey maps, personas, and impact maps. Although the visual output isn't necessarily designer-quality, it excels at engaging stakeholders and team members in user research activities. It's particularly useful for empowering non-designers to contribute meaningfully to UX strategies.

Topic of the Week: Defining Your Role as a UX Design Leader

As UX professionals, many of us often find ourselves caught in cycles of endless implementation, working on tasks dictated by others rather than strategically influencing user experience. If you're feeling overworked, understaffed, and under-appreciated, it's time to redefine your role. Here’s how you can proactively take control and transform your position from pixel-pusher to strategic UX leader.

Clarify Your Goals

Senior management frequently sets high-level organizational objectives that, while seemingly vague, offer essential clues to aligning your UX efforts strategically. Start by identifying those broader goals—whether increasing efficiency, targeting new demographics, or enhancing sustainability—and ask yourself how UX can meaningfully contribute. Present these alignment opportunities to your manager, framing your UX role around supporting company-wide goals. This shifts your focus from reactive tasks to proactive strategic initiatives.

Leverage Your Resources Wisely

Rather than dwelling on resource limitations, carefully evaluate what’s already at your disposal:

• Budgets and Software: Identify any discretionary funds or tools available.
• Internal Staff and External Support: Consider tapping into colleagues from other departments or engaging reliable external agencies. Establishing preferred supplier lists helps manage quality and ensures that external agencies align with your UX standards.
• Autonomy and Training: Use your authority to delegate smaller UX tasks, freeing yourself to focus on strategic planning and education.

This perspective allows you to create impactful strategies within existing constraints. For instance, shifting your role to training internal teams on basic UX practices like user research and testing can extend your influence without increasing headcount.

Expand Your Influence

True UX leadership isn’t just about completing projects; it’s about cultivating a user-centered culture throughout your organization. Here's how:

• Education and Empowerment: Provide training materials and workshops to build UX capabilities within other departments.
• Policies and Standards: Establish clear UX standards and guidelines, creating a framework everyone in your organization can follow.
• Metrics and Accountability: Introduce meaningful UX metrics that encourage internal competition and drive continuous improvement. For instance, turning analytics into league tables among departments can spark healthy competition and motivate better user experiences.

Transforming your role into that of an internal UX consultant positions you to make a broader impact, aligning user-centric design with the overarching organizational strategy.

By following these steps—clarifying your objectives, leveraging your resources, and expanding your influence—you can redefine your role as a UX design leader, shifting from mere execution to strategic empowerment.

Read of the Week

Jacob Nielsen recently wrote an intriguing article titled "Future is Lean, Mean and Scary for UX Agencies". Nielsen predicts challenging times ahead for UX agencies, primarily driven by a shift towards more robust internal UX teams and the rapid rise of AI. However, we believe the narrative is somewhat skewed toward Nielsen's experience with larger organizations. While internal teams are expanding, they often remain overstretched, and the role of specialized UX agencies is still crucial. AI will indeed reshape the industry but likely as an enhancement rather than a replacement, empowering both in-house and external UX teams to deliver more sophisticated solutions rather than merely cutting costs.

Listener Question of the Week

Question: How should agencies handle clients who approach them with projects partially completed using AI-generated code, expecting it to be quick and cheap to finalize?

This is a growing challenge as clients become increasingly confident in AI capabilities, sometimes overestimating what AI can deliver without professional oversight. Here's our approach to handling this:

Clients may assume AI-generated code is nearly complete, but the reality is often different. AI-generated code may appear functional but frequently lacks:

• Accessibility and Security: AI can produce code that seems correct but fails to meet essential standards.
• Performance Efficiency: AI doesn't guarantee optimal performance, and expert human oversight is crucial.

Clients may think professional review of AI-generated code is simple, but developers often find reviewing unfamiliar code more time-consuming than writing from scratch. Educating clients about this reality is essential. Position yourself clearly by explaining:

• AI is powerful but requires human expertise to ensure the code is accessible, performant, and secure.
• Reviewing AI-generated code is inherently complex, frequently taking longer than starting anew.

Clarifying these points upfront can manage expectations and reinforce your value as professionals who ensure quality and reliability beyond what AI alone can achieve.

Marcus Joke

"I asked the librarian if they had any books on paranoia. She whispered, 'They're right behind you.'"

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