Fear, denial & distraction: why web professionals are scared of strategy
Strategy scares the hell out of web and user experience professionals. It’s outside of our comfort zone. So instead of dealing with it, we distract ourselves with tools, tactics, and techniques. Here are some examples that you might recognize.
You’re asked to help improve a train-wreck of a website that’s so obviously broken that you don’t know where to start. Somebody suggests a usability test. Great, we get to use the lab! Fun, but inappropriate. A quick expert review will catch the biggest usability problems. Diving into your favorite UX technique is a distraction from the real problem: a lack of web strategy.
Or you’re involved in a website redesign with the vague goal of “improving the user experience”. Users aren’t happy, please make them happier. The team decides to draw some wireframes and rework the visual design, instead of delivering the unwelcome news that a redesign won’t make the problem go away. As Lou Rosenfeld puts it, redesign must die. Here, tactical design work provides a distraction from content strategy, or the lack of it—which is the root of the problem.
And don’t forget classic shiny object syndrome. Have website issues? No problem! Just add a Facebook widget and some RSS podcast YouTubes, and everything will be OK.
Making change is scary
User experience design is about making change. To be effective, we need to be what Seth Godin calls a linchpin: create work that matters by challenging the status quo. Which is scary. As Karen McGrane puts it, design is the easy part:
For a designer to sit down at a desk and craft a better experience than what most businesses provide today is not that hard. What’s hard is getting a large, decentralized organization with many competing business units to review, critique, approve, and launch a better product. Show me a digital product that’s hard to navigate, and I’ll show you a business with an equally convoluted organizational structure.
Meet your new client, the ACME Widget Company. They’ve been doing fine for years using interruption advertising to sell products, and they’ve never dealt with the impact of the internet. Suddenly it’s obvious to anyone with a web browser that they have no competitive advantage, no coherent message, and no direct relationships with customers. They’re scared by the web, and in denial about their changing business model. ACME ask you to improve their website’s user experience. But the content and usability problems are symptoms of deeper structural and strategic problems. They need what Lisa Welchman calls web operations management: web strategy, governance, execution, and metrics. Until they get a strategy, tactics won’t be effective.
Tactics are easier to sell
We always got away with the distraction sell in the past.
Client: Our customers can’t use our website.
Us: Wanna buy this shiny new CMS? How about an eye-tracking study? Hey look, 2000 friends on Facebook!
The client didn’t hire you to tell them that their business model is threatened by the internet. They’re actually looking for distractions, for superficial fixes. Perhaps an important customer told them their website stinks, so they want you to make the problem go away. They’re in denial about the scale of their web-related problems. They probably don’t even know what content is on their website. (See: content strategy.)
Even clients who are aware of the deeper strategic issues are reluctant to confront them because of organizational politics. Can’t we just redesign the website and deal with all of that later?
The distraction sell is dangerous
Here’s the problem: today, the distraction sell is dangerously short-sighted. The client will judge the success of the project on outcomes, not on whether you did what they initially asked for. When that customer calls after the redesign and says the website still stinks, you’re in trouble.
Don’t be part of the problem
Web people are enthusiastic about technology to the point of naïveté. I can’t remember the number of times I’ve truly believed that if only a client would start a blog, or sell online, or participate in “the conversation”, everything would be fine. In reality there are few low-risk wins. Change is hard, and there’s no guarantee it will work.
When we sell tactics, techniques, or tools as magic fixes for an organization’s problems, we’re distracting them from what’s important–which makes us part of the problem. It’s time to stop doing that.
Do something scary today
To really help organizations fix their broken user experiences, we need to tackle the scary work of making change. If you choose to stick to what you’re comfortable with, own that choice: don’t be surprised when your work isn’t valued. The valuable work comes from moving outside of our comfort zone, and helping our clients to do the same.
If that seems overwhelming, let me suggest a first step. Next time you’re tempted to reach for your favorite technique, tool, or tactic, start a conversation about strategy instead. How does this initiative support our overarching web strategy? How will we measure success? What’s the governance structure for decision making? And do we have a content strategy to stop it from smelling fishy the day after launch?
If you can help to slowly change the organization, you’ll create a context for great design work. Tackle the scary strategy work first, and there’s a better chance that your tactics will be appropriate, effective, and appreciated.
Very good write-up; I couldn’t agree more — it’s the sort of insight you gain after working in this industry for a long time.
I think there is a factor missing that makes your “break the pattern” suggestion more difficult for web professionals, though: competition. The “scary” suggestions will scare customers, and many times will cost more (in the short-term) than the quick-fix distractions that competitors will be queueing up to serve. The difficult solution is to be able to clearly, quickly, and comprehensively argue your case that scariness and pain now makes business sense in the long term.
Hi Nelson,
Thanks for your comment.
I agree that there will always be competitors in this industry queuing up to offer quick-fix tactical “solutions”. But I think a web professional who makes a clear case for doing something scary–i.e., strategy–will be differentiated in the eyes of clients. So in fact, talking about strategy gives you a competitive advantage. It’s not easy, though.
I am utterly baffled as to why you pin this fear solely on web & UX people, because this has never been my experience. Rather, I have found that it is the client and/or the account team who are totally tactic-focused and are either unable and unwilling to talk about the deeper issues that are derailing their chances for success.
Without a willing client partner and strategy-focused account team, there is very little anyone else on the project team–UX, Tech, Creative, PM–can do to steer the ship away from the Scylla and Charybdis of all tactics, all the time. More than that, an understanding of and belief in strategy–the big, difficult, often messy thinking and planning–needs to already be in (some form) of existence within the client’s company. And, finally, a thorough understanding of the client’s business–opportunities, challenges, competitors, etc–is a requirement for even daring to use the s-word in their presence.
Though I’m sure you’ve had your own experiences, a deeper view into what those have been and why they’ve colored your opinions in this way would have made this piece both more interesting and thoughtful.
Great post. I particularly liked the section on tactics being an easier sell. It resonated. I work in a very tactical department, more because that’s all we have the resources to be–we do try with what we have. And I agree that if the will is not there in the organization (yours or the clients), if it is not receptive to the message, it’s a very tough slog. I feel that those of us arguing for a more strategic approach are often voices in the wilderness.
And even when the people who make the big decisions (to paraphrase a co-worker–people with nicer shoes than I) might be receptive to the message, it can still be difficult. For example, hypothetically speaking, say you’re a mere peon and therefore don’t converse with the muckety-mucks, but comments from them filter down to you. From what they’re saying, you believe that what they are looking for is a content strategy that spans marketing, technical communications, training, if only they knew the right question to ask. But between you and them are people with the fear–fear of change, fear of stepping outside their comfort zone, fear of failing.
Thought provoking post, with some great suggestions I can use. What I like most are the ideas around SCOPE and CONVERSATION. It clarified two questions that I can ask to help frame my relationship with clients.
What’s the scope of the job the client is asking for? It can be frustrating when a client comes with a specific request, and you can see that what they are asking for isn’t going to get to the heart of their problem. This is true not just in web design and content strategy realms; I see it in the fitness, health and wellness industry also. My job is to listen to what the client is specifically asking for, see if there’s a bigger desire (or problem), and then find out what time, money, and committment the client is willing to bring to the issue. Look for the big picture, but determine the scope of the work.
What conversation do we have with our clients? Part of the job is educating clients, offering alternatives and new perspectives, because it is entirely possible (often likely) that the thing they want your help with is a symptom or reflection of a much bigger issue (love the quote from Karen McGrane!) As you say, they want you to make their problem go away: won’t a redesign or new bells and whistles do the trick? (Or: how many sit-ups do I have to do to lose my belly fat?)
I think we add value at the very beginning by having conversations that leave clients more informed than when they came to us. Then, if all they want right now is a bell or whistle or re-design, they know they are choosing a superficial quick-fix.
@Gabby Hon:
Steady on! Where did I say it’s only the web/ux people that have the fear?
It sounds like you’re in a hierarchy-heavy environment like an ad agency. I’ve never worked in an ad agency, so perhaps my experience isn’t relevant to your situation.
After spending too much of my career trying to make half-arsed tactical ideas work for people with no strategy or courage, I made a decision to stop being part of the problem. As UX people, they can’t _make_ us do it. We make a choice to do what’s asked of us, to take the job in the first place. IMO life is too short to continue doing that when we have the opportunity to make meaningful change somewhere else.