Making UX Personal
When Experience Beats Explanation
The Challenge
At IAA (auto auction company), business systems analysts worked on complex real-time applications connecting live auctioneers, online bidders, and mobile users across the country. Despite the critical importance of user experience in this high-stakes environment, the company had no established UX practices and uneven awareness among the team.
The Organizational Context
As I introduced behavior-driven development and modern UX principles, the team showed genuine curiosity and interest. However, the company lacked anyone with formal UX training or expertise, so these concepts were new territory for most analysts.
The Innovation
Rather than using a traditional presentation format, I designed an experiential lunch-and-learn because I believed people would learn more from feeling UX principles than hearing about them. I deliberately set up the buffet incorrectly - dessert before salad, forks at one end and plates at the other, soup bowls far from the soup. Participants immediately started rearranging things because the setup was confusing and frustrating.
The Breakthrough
During the debrief, participants could articulate exactly why the buffet felt wrong - it violated their mental models and created unnecessary friction. More importantly, they had felt the frustration of poorly designed interactions. This created emotional understanding, not just intellectual knowledge.
The Lasting Impact
The training created durable behavior change without requiring ongoing reinforcement. Participants began applying UX thinking naturally because they remembered how bad design felt. Additionally, leadership finally approved field research visits that had been requested for months - the experiential training helped them understand why observing real users mattered.
The Principle
Visceral experience creates solidarity with users rather than abstract empathy. When people feel the frustration of bad design themselves, they become advocates for good user experience from the inside out.