Have you ever met someone who claims to be an engineer, expert, or even consultant in User Experience (UX), only to find their actions completely contradicting their title? Or perhaps you know someone from a different field—developer, illustrator, writer, print worker—who overnight became a “UX expert” and updated all their social media profiles to “UI/UX Designer”?
In this satirical post, we’ll explore some realistic points about “pretenders” and those who dilute the concept of user experience. And since it’s a satirical post, it doesn’t represent the general case, nor does it speak for everyone using this term.
10 Quick Signs Not to Trust a “UX Expert”
These are early warning signs that you should either leave the meeting or change the subject if you can—or at the very least, zone out to maintain your sanity until the conversation ends.
1. When a new person is introduced in your company, your client’s company, or someone in your circle as an “engineer,” “consultant,” or “expert” in User Experience, and you immediately get a bad feeling about it.
2. When this person starts talking about the difference between UX and UI, explaining how each has its specialization, and how big companies hire them separately, stating that UX is the lifeblood of websites, applications, and life itself.
3. When you see them smiling and closing their eyes if someone mistakenly mixes up UX and UI concepts or gives feedback that doesn’t align with their preconceived notions.
4. When they lean back in their chair, showing you the boring image of two paths, claiming it explains the story of UX and UI without any additional context, then continue talking into the next day.
5. When you ask them about their previous projects, and their voice lowers as they start dropping the names of big companies and websites without any clear purpose or answer—or they end the discussion by saying they’re a consultant, and their job is just to observe.
6. When they constantly interrupt the conversation to digress into a UX-related equation or principle, often irrelevant to the topic and explained in a convoluted or fabricated manner.
7. When they repeatedly bring up tiresome theories and rules: “the golden rule,” “the user’s eye,” “color theory,” “purchase decision-making,” and other formulas that seem to be made up or heavily altered.
8. When they begin attributing everything in the world, even the most obvious and universally accepted things, to either “good UX” or “bad UX.”
9. When they consistently use phrases like “increasing sales,” “motivating the user,” “fewer clicks,” and “minimalism.”
10. When their conversation becomes exhausting and overloaded with jargon, offering no real value.
But!
And as usual, to keep this post from being purely satirical and meaningless:
The term “User Experience” is genuine, important, and has a significant impact on projects. However, reading about it, listening to theories, and repeating its terminology doesn’t mean understanding it, claiming expertise, or preaching about it. It’s not a skill or profession that you acquire and then claim to master.
Rather, it’s a dynamic and ongoing concept, fundamentally based on real work and continuous experimentation to achieve effective results, far from theorizing and empty talk—whether it’s a web project or even a small roadside shop.