Ever felt like your organization is doing user experience in name only? You’re not alone.
In our recent webinar, Nilufer Erdebil sat down with Tanya Snook — UX expert and coiner of the term “UX Theater” — to talk about what’s really holding teams back from designing user-centered services. One of the biggest culprits? Misunderstanding the difference between UX, UI, design thinking, and research.
While UI is about what people see and interact with on a screen, UX is the full experience — across digital and non-digital touchpoints — and should be integrated from strategy all the way to delivery. It involves research, design, service planning, and implementation. Design thinking is being used to help executives take a more structured, deliberate approach to innovation, and when done in its true form also intails research, design, service planning, and implementation. But without a foundation in user research, it can quickly become a shallow substitute for true user-centered design. And when it’s misunderstood or misapplied, it leads to “UX Theater” — a performance of design without the depth or impact.
🎥 Watch the full conversation with Tanya Snook here
Too often, design thinking gets reduced to a surface-level process — used to explain concepts to leadership, but not carried out thoroughly through with rigorous research and iteration. Tanya warned that when pseudo design thinking replaces true user-centered design, it becomes a risk — “red lights flashing and horns blazing.” And when the value of UX is misunderstood, teams get cut, research is skipped, and organizations end up building for assumptions, not people.
So what’s the solution?
It starts with clarity. Knowing when and how to apply design thinking and UX. Understanding both UX and Design Thinknig are about the full experience — from strategy to service delivery. And bringing in real customer voices to challenge internal bias and surface what really matters.
That’s where Spring2 Innovation comes in. We’ve helped teams across sectors move beyond buzzwords to build better services — through practical training, coaching, and support. Whether you’re trying to align your team, influence leadership, or design meaningful services, we help you bring it all together with real impact.
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👉 Ready to overcome resistance and make research-backed decisions?
Let’s connect and explore ways to make it happen.