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Please excuse my poor attempt at imitating a seagull. A Google search generated the options of "mew", "keow", and "ha-ha-ha-ha" when I attempted to search for the textual representation of the sounds that seagulls make. I chose the option that did not sound like a kitten trying to be innocent nor an egomaniac sounding condescending. My poor attempt is a reflection of the fact that I am not a bird of this species. Or, perhaps it is a reflection of the fact that I'm not a UX seagull, or at least, I hope I am not.

So, what is a UX seagull?

This term came to me towards the start of my current studies in the field of User Experience (UX) Design. There is a web page devoted about them. The web page actually doesn't explain it too clearly, in my opinion. But it's a straightforward concept: UX seagulls are the folk who say they know UX, but have no real knowledge of it nor how to use it. They are the folk who make a lot of noise and the only thing they do for a project is leave a lot of poop all over it.

Who are these people? These are the folk who have no experience in UX, yet claim they do. Unfortunately, UX is one of those fields where many people claim they know what they are doing when they really do not. It isn't like math or science (at least in their basic forms) where it's very clear when you fail, and where when you do, you fail hard. Instead, when working with UX seagulls, the pain points are more subtle and only become apparent after working with them, or worse, when the product is delivered; i.e. when the trouble they bring become exponentially more difficult to overcome.

The real trouble is that many (e.g. those in hiring positions) do not realize that UX seagulls exist. It makes it infinitely more difficult for these folk to spot these sorts of people. It is easy for a UX seagull to hide from an untrained eye. Often times, UX seagulls disguise themselves with graphically beautiful portfolios or wonderfully coded masterpieces (at that point, you're looking at a graphic designer or a computer programmer). In other cases, they are freelance and claim to have "years of UX experience" when all they have done is build website after website. This isn't to say all people who fit into these buckets are definitively UX seagulls (in fact, if someone fits into all of them, they are called something differently all together and is not considered a bad thing -- enter the UX unicorn, which I can cover on another date). So, these UX seagulls successfully enter projects and ultimately do little to nothing to create or improve a user's experience of a product. In fact, they may end up ruining it with characteristic behaviour such as not consulting users in the first place, deciding to work off their own "experience" or "knowledge", and failing to communicate well with the rest of the team to deliver an effective product.

So, the best option to combat UX seagulls is to become aware of their existence in the first place, and then not let them on projects. But how does one weed them out? I have no complete answer to this at the moment, but one can start by asking potential UX candidates questions.

A large part of UX design is about researching the user. So, ask the candidate about user research. Ask them about their methods, techniques, and the strategies. Ask them for their knowledge about surveys, questionnaires, interviews, focus groups, ethnographies. Probe them on content analysis (those who can tell you what that is are real super stars, in my opinion). Ask them about card sorting. Ask them about how they recruit participants to their research. Ask them how they analyze, sort, and code their data.

Another large part about UX design is the designer's workflow. So, ask them about it. Ask them about how they include users in each of the steps in their workflow. Ask them about the design process, especially about how they make it an iterative one. Ask them about prototypes, the different types of prototypes (low, medium, high, wireframes).

Finally, UX design requires an understanding about the subject -- the users. So, ask them about the effects of cognition on user behaviour. Ask them about design heuristics. Ask them about their knowledge of accessibility guidelines.

UX designers would have at least an intermediate level understanding of each of these topics. But UX seagulls would be more prone to stumble.

Take the few moments to ask these questions and save yourself some trouble down the line. Don't let a UX seagull onto your project to poop all over it.