UX Theatre has been getting some press in the first half of 2021. Just this Spring:
- Jesse James Garrett wrote about it in Fast Company (see I helped pioneer UX design. What I see today disturbs me)
- Tricia Wang also wrote about it in Fast Company (see The most popular design thinking strategy is BS)
- Scott Berkun discussed it with the folks at UX Podcast (see Episode #261 Design makes the world)
The term is being used more widely in the UX industry, and I even noticed a session on the topic at an upcoming conference.
All of this makes me so so happy. When I first started writing about UX Theatre, the feedback was immediate and overwhelming. It seemed people had been worried about bad design practices and just needed to label it to feel reassured, even validated, that what they were seeing in practice truly was an issue. (And they weren't just being cynical or paranoid.) The more we talked about it, the more people realized that it was real and something to be addressed in our practice.
And so it was incredibly exciting to be invited by James and Per from UX Podcast to join them for a chat about UX Theatre. Here's what we discussed:
- What is UX Theatre?
- Are we normally performing theatre, and the exception is when we’re doing good design?
- How does an organization's UX maturity affects their propensity for UX Theatre?
- How have the concepts of "Design Thinking" and "Everyone is a designer" contributed to UX Theatre?
- The risks of giving domain specialists too much authority in design work
- The role of the UXer as advocate and evangelist of UX
- Designing a culture of design in your organization
- Showing the value of UX through storytelling and "packaging"
- Documenting the UX activities, decisions and outcomes to discourage UX Theatre