Titles are a currency. They tell the world what you do, how long you’ve done it — and to a certain extent how well you do it.
They also come with baggage, especially in the digital world.
The new economy folks, product developers and start-ups, don’t want a Creative Director. They hear that and think: Right-brained. Temperamental. Expensive Ideas. Awards not ROI. #ProbablySmokesPotToo
And the agency creatives hear UXD and think: Too left-brained. We’ll surely suck the air right out of a great campaign idea with methodologies and information architecture. They think we don’t care about “Brand”. And why would they, for god’s sake the title has User in it, like it’s 1982 and Tron is playing in the theaters. #DontKnowLetsA/BTestIt
And neither title makes much sense for how clients need to think about their brands, products and services. There are no walls anymore. Your product is your brand. And your brand is your product. At. Every. Single. Touch-point.
If you get this then you know that great products die everyday because they can’t cut through the clutter. On the flipside, nothing will kill a bad product faster than a great ad campaign, so you’ve gotta nail what you’re selling before you sell what you’re selling. And if your customer service is an afterthought, then it’s just a slow painful death, if you’re lucky.
So what do we call ourselves then, if we “creators” care about all those things?
Some propose Consumer Experience instead of UX — that’s friendly right? Well, do we think everyone is lined up at the figurative trough with open mouths just waiting? Have we not been creating stuff that asks people to create stuff themselves for years now? Obviously, not everything is meant to be merely consumed, that’s a traditional mindset.
What about simply Designer? Too vague. Tell someone you’re a designer and dollars to donuts the immediate response will be: “Oh, what do you design?”
What if… what if we just pull back all the layers of legacy and assumptions and simply ask ourselves: What is it that we do?
We don’t just make things. We craft moments.
Moments in real-people’s lives. Moments we hope they will feel better off having had. Moments they’ll want to share. Moments that have to be consistent across channels or they won’t be remembered or trusted.
We might make people laugh, smile. Feel a sense of belonging. Gasp in awe. Sigh in relief. Discover something new. Feel in control for once. Get motivated. Finally understand something. Or they might not notice something they could have, in a negative way — because we removed a hurdle and designed a better experience.
It takes all different types of mediums and channels to design these human experiences. And not just any experiences, but ones that have a unique voice and mission — the stuff that makes a person choose one brand over another.
We come from different backgrounds. We have different strengths. Storytelling, Branding, Motion, Interaction Design, Product Development, Service Design, Strategy, Coding, Measurement, whatever… Aren’t we all just trying to make moments we hope real-people will notice, value and share?
We are all Experience Designers now.
So, what do you say we leave all the 20th century stuff behind us and go make the future together?
