Going for the Guerilla User Experience

At first glance, Stamford Street in South London is a typical, busy London street. Many commuters use it as they head towards Blackfriars Bridge or Waterloo. But hidden away in a small part of Stamford Street is a small miracle.

Someone has decided to grow an illicit vegetable plot on a small piece of public land.

Cabbages, spring onions, green beans and strawberries grow amongst snap dragons, pot marigolds and sunflowers. The gardeners, whoever they are, are anonymous and don’t own the land. Instead, they are part of a movement - the Guerrilla Gardening movement - that is fighting against neglect and scarcity in public spaces by adopting them as places to grow things.

I think of this space when people tell me that they are unable to make user experience (UX) happen within their organisation. They tell me that design research is poorly understood in their organisation. That UX is often treated like an afterthought rather than a core competency. That they just can’t make a difference whilst their senior management fails to recognise the value of user-centered design.

I think of this space because we can learn a lot from the Guerrilla Gardening movement. Perhaps we need to adopt 'guerilla-user experience' practices and lead change from the bottom up. This might sound a challenging task, but it is certainly possible. As American Anthropologist Margret Mead once said, "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."

But 'guerilla-user experience' requires us to speak a different language. The language of design and usability just isn’t sufficient to persuade many senior managers. The language we need is the language of business. The key to success lies in improving our skills in the areas of operations management and business strategy.

Associated Link: Learn the language: Repositioning User Experience as a Strategic Process

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