I Fight for the User: Business-Centered vs. User-Centered Design

A cautionary tale of user-centered ideals vs. business realities

Reading Time: 9 minutes

A few years into my UX design career, I entered what is always the most annoying stage for any UX designer. It was a stage where I was fanatically devoted to “the user.”

I pushed for the user's point of view in every meeting with stakeholders, but all the while, I was fighting for a cause I didn't fully understand.

Today, I want to tell you a tale of two worldviews I had to learn as a designer. I want to tell you a story of two worldviews.

A User-Centered Design Worldview

“I fight for the users!”

It’s what my Twitter bio said at one point. It’s like there was some epic battle brewing between robots and humans. I needed to devote my 140-character bio to my allegiance to humans.

“Solve user problems, and everything else will follow!” I remember writing that sentence and seriously thinking it was true. But the only thing that followed was difficult relationships with stakeholders.

This is how I saw things then, with the user at the center of everything. Sadly, this is just one side of the story:

My devotion to the user made me good at figuring out what they wanted (or at least what they said), but it didn’t make me very good at designing what my company was asking for.

Whenever a user issue arose, I wanted to fix it immediately because the user need was clear. But the business always had other priorities.

It was frustrating for the UX team because we talked to users a lot and knew exactly which parts of the user journey were causing issues...yet we were always asked to work on something different.

Why were we hiring so many marketers when we never had enough engineers to address our user problems? As the marketing team swelled, the product team drowned.

My CEO at the time was struggling to keep up with the board’s financial expectations. He was still traumatized by a recent round of layoffs. I’m sure his nightmares were about being forced to do it again.

The UX Team’s nightmares were about being bored at work. We were not dealing with the same pressures. The company didn’t see the user problems as we saw them.

Were they unaware of the customer's perspective? The truth was that we had two different worldviews.

A Business-Centered Design Worldview

But the whole time I was obsessed with the user, I completely neglected the business. And without the business, I didn’t get that far trying to help the user.

WARNING: If you only hold the user-centered view of design, the following may feel like UX heresy:

I hate to break it to you, but the business doesn’t revolve around users' needs. The user is only one of many competing factors. Business stakeholders care more about the business's success than your user's happy path.

Don’t believe me? Businesses regularly pivot to serve new customers with new products when the user isn’t working for them. And in hard times, everyone protects the business, not the customer.

This is going to hurt, so I'll make it quick.

Meme by Jeff Humble

Your users are often users of your competitors as well. They have a job they need you to do.

Your users don't reciprocate your devotion to them. They’re not loyal, and a million tech companies compete for their attention.

It’s not that you have to give up your user-centered lens. It's a precious asset for your career and can be a helpful tool even in the boardroom. But you must understand the business-centered lens to get the user's work done.

Thinking back, I wish the UX team better understood the business-centered view.

It wouldn't have been heresy...just grown-up UX.

We could have worked on the UX improvements we wanted while making the rest of the business happy. We could have had a say in deciding what to do and what not to do, genuinely serving as user and business advocates.

Finding Overlaps in User & Business

Eventually, I let go of my devotion to the user.

All that pushing for the user wasn’t helping. It alienated business stakeholders who didn't share my user-centered view. And without those business stakeholders on board for UX improvements, I couldn't do anything for the user.

Ultimately, my devotion to the user didn’t help them or me. And looking back, I think part of my devotion to the user was a mask for my UX career ambitions.

UX design is very important, and getting caught up in the mantras is easy.

Don’t be like I was. Learn to use the lenses of user-centered design and business-centered design. Look for places where the two worldviews overlap; you will be much better off.

Overlaps are better than being stuck between. 🗡🗡

Learn More

Eventually, I discovered fields like design strategy where every project has the challenge of improving outcomes for both the user and the business.

Learn how to apply both user-centered and business-centered design views with this free class on design strategy.