Real world advice from Elena Cross

An interview with a fresh, wise voice on making things happen for designers

[quick note: You catch the video of my UX Camp keynote about this book here]

To help promote this book, I’ve been more active on LinkedIn than ever before. Recently I came across a smart, wickedly funny comment. And then another. Who is this person I wondered?

Her name is Elena Cross and she’s an experienced director of UX and Design, and in the process of starting her own agency. A side-chat ensued and the fun wisdom continued. And her take on things lines up well with the spirit in the book. It seemed obvious to capture some of her thinking here and she agreed. Enjoy.

SB: What are the top three frustrations designers have?

EC: The top frustration I see is the lack of control over their own domain. Marketing has this long-standing joke: "everyone knows how to do marketing"; however, unlike design, marketing frequently gets to make the final call within their domain. But they also get to be accountable for the call they make — a part that design has not yet embraced.

Design finds itself squeezed between multiple agendas: the technical agenda and what has so far been called the "business" agenda. Being the peacemaker, the middle-ground finder, the glue, the people-pleaser — all of which is good — diverts time and effort away from making a sizable positive dent in the business at pace. The more time you spend on stakeholder management, the less time you have to create something innovative that results in a revenue uptick.

In an ideal world, all those agendas would align to a big shiny North Star, but that is rarely the case in reality. What you’ll notice is that the two agendas also get to have accountability for their choices, which is why design frequently takes "one for the team." The historic lack of willingness to be accountable for design outcomes is what led us here. It's about time we grow some accountability.

The second frustration I often encounter is the one newer entrants to the job experience once the rose-tinted glasses fall off. "This is not as fun as I thought it would be; this is hard." How does the expression involving Sherlock go?

The bootcamp and influencer frenzy that has gone on for a while, as well as the dogmatisation of frameworks as a silver bullet to any and all problems, have romanticised and glamorised the role into something it categorically isn’t, never was, and never will be — easy. Solving problems is supposed to be hard; solving them with simplicity and elegance is an extra-special flavour of hard. Fresh talent discovers that choosing a drop shadow on a button is not really a problem solved, nor is guiding the user through a set of screens only to pat yourself on the back and call that a job well done. Design is not art, and many people walk into a role expecting it to be art, but well-paid.

The last and more recent frustration is the speed of career growth. The COVID hiring and promotions craze has shifted what is perceived as the expected timeframe for the next steps in a career while seemingly forgetting that work quality has to keep pace. This has resulted in many designers now being deeply disappointed that the path is not as fast as they hoped, nor is it as easy or straightforward. There's a lot of title-chasing that now happens, which was significantly less prevalent before when quality took centre stage. The reality is that everyone moves up at their own pace; there is no cookie-cutter answer. The key thing to remember is that those steps need to be boosted by stripes earned, experience gained, outcomes realised, and quality bar raised. Among all those variables, timeframe is a factor of much less significance.

How can a designer become more accountable?

To start figuring out how to be more accountable, you have to understand where you are in the system and that you are actually part of a system. Any organisation is a system. Where do you fit, who’s 1–2 levels above, who’s sideways, how will your newly found corporate bravery affect those above you on the org chart, sideways, and even those below, if that applies? Anything you own—your boss owns too, as well as any reports you have, who also now own it by proxy through you. Chances are, some sideways butterfly effects will be present too.

The next step is to figure out what you can wield effectively and prove out. You will need to figure out the input, the output, and the outcome, ensuring that outcome helps all those affected by the layout of the system. Say you've chosen a small research initiative—figure out what it actually costs the company to run it; in other words, what’s the budget spend, this is your input. Use salaries and other costs (use salary ballparks if you don’t have access to direct information) to calculate the total cost of the initiative for its duration.

Figure out what the output of the research will be—the deliverable, the output. Then figure out what metric measures you will deliver for that budget, the outcome. If we complete the XYZ initiative, with ABC deliverables, we hope to achieve DEF outcome that will result in this much money saved, this much potential revenue created, this much dollar-value development cost reduction, etc. The last part of your sentence is the two metrics you will need to track, those are the outcomes you will own. For any budget you spend, there should always be a greater dollar outcome—the greater, the better.

The last step is to take this budget and outcome target to the parts of the system identified in step one, gather support and buy-ins, and get going. Congratulations, you now own your first metrics that you're accountable for. Once the initiative has concluded, measure, bring back the measured outcomes to those in the group who need to see them, particularly your line manager, and this is when you finally stand accountable. This is when you balance what you own against what you owe to the organisation.

If this path sounds too difficult to achieve, then your step zero should be to sit down with Sales and Marketing to understand how the organisation actually makes revenue and what the sales cycles are like, followed by a sit-down with Development to understand what can save costs or time to market.

When should accountability be avoided?

In an ideal world, I’d like to say never. However, the system you are a part of will either allow you to be accountable or not, and if the system didn’t, chances are it never will—unless drastic strategic or staffing changes happen. If accountability is too difficult to achieve, it might indicate the appropriate time to look for a new system before you rack up your own career sunk costs.

How do you explain good design to a leader who doesn’t get it?

You don’t. You show what good design can do instead. This is one of the rare situations where "going rogue" might be good advice: validating your option swiftly and cheaply with the target audience and bringing the outcome of that back to your leadership. Including your "better" option as part of early A/B testing pre-development is another, less risky option. Putting it to a wider internal audience, or perhaps convincing your design leader to let you test it first, externally or internally, before making the final call if you really believe your solution is better.

That said, not every leader will greet your challenge to their stance with understanding and open arms. Be prepared that if being open-minded is not part of their modus operandi, the work will fall on you to learn how to manage up effectively or to simply cut your losses and look for leadership that more closely aligns with your set of beliefs.

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You can read more of Elena Cross’ wise and entertaining opinions on LinkedIn.