One of the things I've been hearing a lot recently is how having a UX person a team is expensive and if you can't afford one, it's not necessary anyway. It reminds me of a way of thinking – if you can taste, you can cook (not true – can disprove that with at least 2-3 people I know) and if you can hear, you can sing (I can disprove that in 2 seconds or less). If you can see, that does not mean you can design, work with users, understand their needs, or translate that into functionality.

I think this latest "problem" comes down to 2 issues:

• People don't always understand what UX people do (heck, some days I don't even understand what I do and for me to explain my job can take up to 5 minutes. Sometimes, people do regret asking me 🙂 ).
• UX involvement is perceived to be expensive

So what do UX people do?

User experience includes the copy, the design, the functionality – the general experience. It's what the user sees and deals with when he goes to a site, a store, uses an application, or goes through a workflow. User experience professionals may specialize in a particular area (or multiple areas), but in general, they always keep in mind the needs of the user.

To be a purist, this means that UX people get their information from research and testing. And yes, they always should do the research and the testing to make sure what they are building meets those needs. However, we don't always have the luxury in projects to work for 2-3 months to research the audience. And sometimes, even to do the work after a project is complete to create a library available for the next UX person, there is no budget available and no seen "need." So, you have to wonder, what does a UX person provide?

UX professionals have compiled knowledge over the years of working on other projects, and often this knowledge is transferable. They know what worked and what didn't. I think we all need to let go of industry specific usage – users are users and there are some similar ways of thinking. Just because someone is in banking doesn't mean he submits an expense report differently than someone in retail. The way we buy shoes is similar to how we look for a restaurant – we just use different criteria to get to the same thing. It's all about being able to identify a thought process and psychology and leverage that in a design.

So what is a design? Even designers today are being called upon to change their roles slightly. Lately, we're being seen as solution providers, problem solvers, and facilitators (no longer genius artists). In a way, that's a healthy view – design isn't art. Design provides a solution to a problem.

And in the world of Agile, design is a collaborative process. The developers have a say as much as the business owners and the UX professional and we are all solving the same problem, bringing to the table a different perspective and representing a different interest. Almost like the UN, but for software.

So, back to my original question, what does a UX professional do these days?

These days, I know I see my role as being the representative for the users. If the team needs the UI to look better, I help out where I can and get designers and copywriters to help. If we are adding a feature and we're not sure how a design will be accepted, it's my job to suggest usability testing and the cost. If we are in a meeting and I hear about a feature being implemented in a weird way, it's my job to speak up for the users and say "Hey, I think that is a bad idea. Let's try this instead."

With that said, I think someone representing the users and facilitating their requirements being implemented into the product is a pretty key role to have on a team. In fact, it's vital (and I'm not saying that to justify my job) from the perspective of a project team being like the UN (where if there is a conference on a third world problem, third world representatives are present). It's the Agile way, really. Otherwise, the business interests are represented, the developer interests are represented, the QA interests are represented, but what about the people who use the product? We can't depend on the business to represent them and prioritize their own needs (more on this in another post). There needs to be checks and balances.

To the second point – is it expensive to have this role on a team?

No.

In the world of Agile, IAs/IDs are no longer writing enough documentation to wallpaper a McMansion (they write documentation, yes – just not that much). Instead, they are being asked to leverage their knowledge and other resources to create an experience people will use. That means there are a lot of random instant messages, emails, page reviews, discussions – that spends maybe a total of 2 hours per day (no more than 10 hours per week for a project unless there is a sea of developers involved – then 1 person should be dedicated).

And to be the voice of the user in product development, the UX person will need to help get testing going. Now there are a lot of new technologies out there to make testing cheaper and virtual. There's no real need for the fancy, one-way mirrored rooms or the 10K tests with 15 users. Actually, you are almost better off to test with smaller groups more frequently (testing iterations) – which helps in the long term, allowing changes to the experience to be tested and a proven solution. This way UI enhancements can be prioritized to allow for shippable product at any time in the process (and more on this in a future posting).

I guess my point here, to the original question, is yes, we do need UX people on the team. Do we need dedicated people? No. Do we need to have the user's needs represented? Most definitely.