Throughout my career, UX design has been the underdog: perpetually misunderstood, left out, pushed around, denied credit, and always the least influential and most ignored voice in the room. And when I coach design leaders, many of their aspirations revolve around finding a way to change that equation.
I thought of these aspirations while talking with Cynthia Savard Saucier, VP of UX for Shopify, for the latest episode of our design leadership podcast Finding Our Way. Cynthia describes UX leaders as being afflicted with what she calls “little sister syndrome”: an inferiority complex brought on by having to compete for resources and executive attention with partner teams that are larger, more established, more entrusted, and simply more powerful.
These design leaders get caught up in trying to level the playing field, usually by seeking more power for themselves and/or trying to constrain the power of others. But the youngest sibling will always be the youngest sibling, Cynthia points out, and there’s no way to change that essential power imbalance within the family. The 8-year-old can’t have the same privileges as the 16-year-old, no matter what arguments for fair treatment they may advance.
“The reality is, you can complain, but you’re not going to get older faster,” Cynthia says. “There’s nothing you can do about it. The UX team is never going to be more numerous than the engineering team. So let’s stop that fight.”
Most design leaders I’ve met understand design to be a conceptual equal partner to product and engineering (and maybe some other functions too) in the process of creating digital products. But that conceptual equality really only plays out in the dynamics among the leaders of those functions. When it comes to the hard realities of budgets, headcount, and especially resourcing priorities, the needs of the bigger kids will always have to come first.
So you can’t get older faster. But little sisters have their own strategies for getting their needs met—making key moves at the right moments to make themselves heard, crafty negotiating with the top decision makers, and building alliances with more powerful siblings. But first you have to be able to accept the reality of a built-in power dynamic that won’t change.
Jesse James Garrett 