Your perception of great user experience is not the same as everyone else.

If UX were a film, what would its tagline be?

A story about balancing the forces in user experience.

Weighing up the needs of the customer, the business and technology.

In UX, no one can hear you scream!

It’s difficult, right? You could say “UX is about how a user thinks about navigating a system”, “making a product intuitive” or “UX is making the complex, simple” — any of these statements can define your intent. However, these principles can mean wildly different things to different people — we just don’t all share the same perception of great UX and have the same in-depth knowledge as you.

In UX, you have to acknowledge that you’re going to work with people who’ve had different experiences with UX and may have completely different goals than you. People who spend all–day using software that you would never go near (spreadsheets *cough*). These people don’t care about designing the next Apple product or a new Spotify; they’re more concerned with other things, such as the volume of sales, speed to market, customer awareness, functionality and keeping people in jobs.

This is where three worlds collide — business needs, technical constraints and customer demand. Somewhere in the middle is UX — and it’s your job to keep these worlds…