Commentary

Over the past several years, CHIFOO has hosted speakers who have focused on the strategic value of user experience. The message has been clear: As user experience employees of companies, if we expect to make a difference, we must play a strategic role in the company. Similarly, if we are a creative agency we must position our offerings at a strategic level. 

During this same period, we’ve noticed an explosion of new roles (or at least new titles): Interaction Designer, Interaction Architect, User Experience Strategist, User Experience Architect, to list just a few.

In my own job (as Principal Architect, User Experience), I’ve been asked to create a “User Experience Architecture.” Never mind no such thing exists.

As I’ve listened to our speakers talk about “The Product is the Experience” and “Interaction Design is Strategy”. I’ve begun to think there may be a connection: Might User Experience Architecture encompasses strategy, user experience and the product/service development process?

What is User Experience Architecture (or what should it be)? How is it practiced? What are its deliverables? How does it differ from other aspects of user experience design?  Why is it important?

This being the “political season” I thought I’d start with a polemic: What are the political ramifications of user experience architecture?

In my experience as a bricks-and-mortar architect, architecture (referred to here in upper-case Architecture for convenience) is inherently political. Perhaps because it is fundamental to human values of shelter and protection or perhaps because it takes so much money and resources, Architecture is never politically neutral.

Politics come into play across the full range of architectural projects, from a small remodel of a private residence to a major urban renewal.  Architects are aware of the political context of their work; they must balance their design’s contribution to the ever-evolving discipline (not to mention its contribution to the public good) against the short-term desires of their patrons.  I use politics in this instance to refer to the tradeoffs among societal “goods” by those with authority and power. By virtue of its high capital costs, Architecture has traditionally been the “hired help” of the rich and powerful. Sometimes architects do represent the disenfranchised (see for example Michael Pyatok’s work in community-based architecture) but they are the exception. Regardless, Architecture can’t avoid being embroiled in politics.

Consider the renewal project for the World Trade Center site as a recent and dramatic example of the tensions in and tradeoffs among public and private values. The sheer rhetoric barely covers the political agenda (soaring 1,776 feet into the sky, its illuminated mast evoking the Statue of Liberty’s torch); values (what should “Freedom Tower” be: memorial, monument or commercial office building?) and the very meaning of civic (and civil) life in the United States (who should decide and what should the process be for rebuilding on this site?). These tensions go on at every level of our communities (if not so dramatically) – from your neighbor’s opinion of your choice of paint color (or their horrific choice) to the local public library branch remodel. 

New forms of Architecture have emerged from political positioning: in 1898 the Viennese Secessionist movement (reacting to the reactionary conservatism of the Vienna Academy) and the Bauhaus movement (a socialist movement attempting to reconcile arts and craft with industrial processes) are two examples of architectural movements that emerged from political manifestos.

Although these are examples from early 20th century Europe, the blossoming of architectural expression in the United States around the same time was equally infused with peculiarly American political values. Frank Lloyd Wright’s utopian vision for America in the 1920s (illustrated with suburban “Prairie Style” homes adjacent to flowing concrete freeways), centered around democratic values and equitable distribution of wealth.

It is almost impossible to identify an Architectural movement or “ism” that doesn’t embody political expression.

How does any of this relate to user experience, interaction design and product development in the 21st century? 

In CHIFOO’s 2007 Speaker Series, Mind the Business: Promoting the Value of Your Work several speakers addressed how we, as professionals, need to move from “victims” to “leaders.” This is a challenge in all senses of the word: a challenge to our perception of our value to the organization, a challenge to our way of working, and a challenge to achieve.

How can we move our work “up the ladder” to make it more valuable from a business perspective? That will be the essence of our political struggle if we are to contribute to the strategic leadership of our organizations. 

When architects choose to question the project owner’s motives, city codes or culturally bound assumptions of the project brief, they open up opportunities for creative expression, opportunities to resolve otherwise intractable problems, and opportunities to find ways of moving the “art” forward. A challenge to the status quo is a political act, as is accepting it.  The question is: Have we made the choice intentionally? Architects are trained to be self-conscious about the choices they’ve made; they are taught to both defend and embrace those intentional choices.

So too, we as User Experience architects must step up to the challenge of questioning our position within the business structure. If we truly believe our company’s sole offering is the user experience, then we must insinuate ourselves into the corporate fabric in ways very different from individual contributor on a project level.  That process of insinuation is inherently political. In some cases we might be insinuated right out the door; in others we might open up the creative expression necessary for truly serving our users.

In the next installment, I’ll transition from politics to strategy and its relationship to Architecture and User Experience. Hopefully I’ll tie in some of the great stuff Nathan Shedroff shared in our October meeting about the fundamentals of meaning and business (download this very nice summary MeaningfulInnovation.pdf).

Feel free to write me if a) you’ve even seen this article, b) you have any kind of opinion about its content or c) if you would like to engage in a deeper discussion about these issues.