So I’m often asked in the street ‘What is the future of UX?’* And, bombshell, in my Tyler Durden voice I reply: ‘There is no UX!’

(*Disclaimer: I’ve never been stopped in the street and asked ‘What is the future of UX?’. That would just be weird. But I do get stopped by tourists a lot who ask me for directions to places I have no idea existed. I just send them in any old direction)

Last year, Amazon OWNED the internet (using caps Oleg style for emphasis, I’ll stop that now) – apparently 89% of all online orders at the busiest time of year went through Amazon**.  89%!?!!

That’s crazy.  I know that includes Amazon marketplace, so eBay is the one taking a big hit and small traders are just moving somewhere new to sell their stuff…

But still.  Eighty nine percent?!  eBay had better think of something quick, those ‘beige is bad’ adverts are not working.

** https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-05/amazon-maintains-holiday-dominance-despite-stepped-up-pressure

This is it. All good things come to an end. The final in the UX series. I promised you all a good send-off … And I’ll fail to deliver, but will try to have fun along the way! No time for tears. And there might be some.

So, the story I’ve been teasing you about for a while now – ‘when UX isn’t fair’.

I bought a bush online (I know, right?) last year. It wasn’t for me. I don’t want to relive that experience again. The site could have promised me the most magnificent specimen in an upsell, and I wouldn’t have cared a jot. I just wanted to buy it and get out of there.

OK, we’ve all seen it.  Every day on LinkedIn some wise guy is showing off about the profit he has made on his Bitcoin investment. Or there’s a picture of another golden Rolls Royce that you can only buy with Bitcoin … which was apparently the price of a pizza, back in the day. Even the Reuters newsfeed mixes it in, amongst other ‘news’ like an assassination attempt on the Prime Minister.

So, What’s It All About?

Back in 2008/2009, a Japanese (or Russian) dude called ‘Satoshi Nakamoto’ (a real life Keyser Söze) developed a new type of currency, one held purely in digital format. It never really took off, until after years of political uncertainty, and boosted by online ecommerce stores looking to break the mould over competitors and offer ‘something different’, suddenly this little thing caught the attention of tech bloggers and began appearing next to PayPal in shopping carts and on newsfeeds.

No one had any (and you’d be gutted if you had, and bought that $5 pizza back in the day), but popularity started to rise when the (fluctuating) price rose sharply against standard currencies.

UX is big business.

In fact, right now there are more UX open positions on job boards than there are for Front End developers. Which doesn’t make much sense, unless there’s a sudden shift in the market in 6 months time when there’s a ton of wireframes ready and no one around to take them live. But I’m happy to go with the flow.

So how do you secure your dream job in this market?

Without experience you won’t be able to reach beyond a mid-level position, but what ‘experience’ do others have? Is it worth dropping down a level just to get in the door? Is time sat at a desk on a project more valued than a creative spark or natural talent? I don’t know, I’m asking you.

But here’s my advice to young folk wanting to muscle in. Listen up, whipper-snappers.

What you need are 3 things – a portfolio (to show what you can do), an awareness of what you need to do (and why we do it), and an understanding of the marketplace for the client.

*Spoiler alert – it’s not. But there are some stuff we need to fix.

Issue 3 – ‘That’s Agile, baby’

Agile. Stupid Agile. This is where I lose the Agile Evangelists.

Fact is, Agile is great for clients. It’s great for PMs, and the wider company image to show that “we’re human, we all make mistakes, let’s figure it out”.

And actual ‘real’ coding development works well when Agile methodology is managed right – with a strong team – although it’s got to be said a little better on the Back End side.