Take Back those Words! Reclaiming and Reenergizing the Vocabulary of UX
Jemma Ahmed
Advancing Research and Shift UX Curator
Jon Fukuda
Co-founder, Limina.co
Abby Covert
Abby Covert, Chief Sensemaker, The Sensemakers Club
Stefanie Hutka
Founder & Head of Design Research at Sendfull, Author of What Your Machines Should Do
Louis Rosenfeld
Founder, Publisher, & CEO, Rosenfeld Media
Summary
In UX, we often take for granted the words we use to describe our roles, tools, methods, and our work in general. And therein lies a trap: while we initially define our vocabulary, eventually our vocabulary defines--and hamstrings--us. Terms like “agile,” “delight,” “user,” “innovation,” "research" and more recently, “AI,” have become so abstract, ambiguous, and misinterpreted that they’re actually harmful to productive conversations. So let’s take aim at the words that constrain us, and take back our vocabulary! Join the Shift UX curation team (Stef Hutka, Jon Fukuda, Jem Ahmed, Abby Covert, and Lou Rosenfeld); we’ll be searching for UX terms to deconstruct and maybe even ban! Be sure to bring your own semantic suspects to this spicy soiree.
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