(no subject)
Today is world usability day.
I used to look forward to this day when I worked at Lulu, mostly since it meant we, the UX (User Experience) department, would all go spend the night at a big event held at the GlaxoSmithKline campus in the Research Triangle Park. I usually signed up with a few of the other UXers to volunteer - the first one I sat behind a desk handing out nametags to people until the event started.
It really boggles me sometimes that I was on a team of professionals, most of whom had a Master's degree in something and years of experience. I tried to keep up - I usually just tagged along, and we never got many chances to do actual usability research, but I had one major project all on my own where I had to redesign the completely fucking unusable interface of this godawful open-source accounting system they wanted to implement. It was just an internal project, so they put me on it by myself. Basically, I had to interview the accounting dept and design both screens and interaction flows for a bunch of people whose jobs I barely understood, and write the HTML wireframes for this javabeast to hook into. I even used Eclipse.
Ultimately, the entire project was shuttled so I never got to find out how well I did, but the accountants all liked my mockups when I presented them each iteration and they passed the 5 second test and everything (They were using an old-ass version of Quickbooks, so it wasn't hard to make something better.).
A lot of companies really shit on the UX department, if they bother to have one at all. We're advocating for the people who give them money, but no one, from the designers to programmers to marketers to management, really seems to give much of a fuck beyond some lip service. Customer Service was the only ally we ever had since we actually *listened* to them and their complaints. It's so bizarre and frustrating.
Eventually, the UX department was completely dismantled. A few of them got stuck as front-end engineers, the rest of us went to the marketing department where we basically just coded HTML/CSS landing pages. I was no longer allowed to have any input on the designs - which were designed almost entirely by people whose design background was completely in print, so they had no idea how webpages actually worked - and I was supposed to just code them and shut the fuck up.
Not long after that, I was laid off without warning.
It actually kind of hurts a little when Lulu comes up somewhere. I haven't been to the site in ages. It's like hearing about an ex, I guess. I don't even care how well or poorly they're doing - I just want to forget and move on. (Whenever someone asks me about a recommendation for a print on demand service, though, I point them to Createspace and warn them away from Lulu. I'm allowed a little bit of bitterness.)
And now, again, I work for a jackass whose background is entirely in print, who doesn't give a fuck about the clients or their customers, who my input means less than shit to. I'm just supposed to make their fucking PSDs into internets in 24hrs after the designer's spent two weeks on them.
It's very demoralizing for someone who's already been reassured by a life of abuse and neglect that they are worthless to also be treated as such in their professional life.
I used to look forward to this day when I worked at Lulu, mostly since it meant we, the UX (User Experience) department, would all go spend the night at a big event held at the GlaxoSmithKline campus in the Research Triangle Park. I usually signed up with a few of the other UXers to volunteer - the first one I sat behind a desk handing out nametags to people until the event started.
It really boggles me sometimes that I was on a team of professionals, most of whom had a Master's degree in something and years of experience. I tried to keep up - I usually just tagged along, and we never got many chances to do actual usability research, but I had one major project all on my own where I had to redesign the completely fucking unusable interface of this godawful open-source accounting system they wanted to implement. It was just an internal project, so they put me on it by myself. Basically, I had to interview the accounting dept and design both screens and interaction flows for a bunch of people whose jobs I barely understood, and write the HTML wireframes for this javabeast to hook into. I even used Eclipse.
Ultimately, the entire project was shuttled so I never got to find out how well I did, but the accountants all liked my mockups when I presented them each iteration and they passed the 5 second test and everything (They were using an old-ass version of Quickbooks, so it wasn't hard to make something better.).
A lot of companies really shit on the UX department, if they bother to have one at all. We're advocating for the people who give them money, but no one, from the designers to programmers to marketers to management, really seems to give much of a fuck beyond some lip service. Customer Service was the only ally we ever had since we actually *listened* to them and their complaints. It's so bizarre and frustrating.
Eventually, the UX department was completely dismantled. A few of them got stuck as front-end engineers, the rest of us went to the marketing department where we basically just coded HTML/CSS landing pages. I was no longer allowed to have any input on the designs - which were designed almost entirely by people whose design background was completely in print, so they had no idea how webpages actually worked - and I was supposed to just code them and shut the fuck up.
Not long after that, I was laid off without warning.
It actually kind of hurts a little when Lulu comes up somewhere. I haven't been to the site in ages. It's like hearing about an ex, I guess. I don't even care how well or poorly they're doing - I just want to forget and move on. (Whenever someone asks me about a recommendation for a print on demand service, though, I point them to Createspace and warn them away from Lulu. I'm allowed a little bit of bitterness.)
And now, again, I work for a jackass whose background is entirely in print, who doesn't give a fuck about the clients or their customers, who my input means less than shit to. I'm just supposed to make their fucking PSDs into internets in 24hrs after the designer's spent two weeks on them.
It's very demoralizing for someone who's already been reassured by a life of abuse and neglect that they are worthless to also be treated as such in their professional life.