Or: Why UX sometimes sounds more complicated than it is
I started noticing something during my UX course.
The more useful an idea was, the more likely it was to be wrapped in layers of terminology, frameworks, and workshop language. Simple observations suddenly became “insight synthesis.” Grouping similar interview quotes became “affinity mapping.” Asking practical design questions somehow transformed into a structured innovation ritual.
At one point I spent hours translating course notes into plain English just so I could understand what the actual lesson was.
And honestly, that became more interesting to me than the exercises themselves.
Because underneath all the vocabulary, I realized something important:
A lot of UX frameworks are just structured common sense with specialized language wrapped around them.
That doesn’t mean UX is fake. Not at all.
Good UX is very real. It’s psychology, communication, behavioral observation, systems thinking, decision support. It’s understanding how people think and reducing friction between them and what they’re trying to do.
That part matters deeply.
But parts of the industry absolutely become over-abstracted. Especially in education, workshops, and innovation culture. Sometimes ordinary reasoning is presented as if it were proprietary methodology.
And once I noticed that, I couldn’t unsee it.
The Moment Things Started Clicking
The breakthrough for me came when I stopped trying to memorize UX language and started translating everything into simpler questions:
- What are we actually learning here?
- What problem are we trying to solve?
- What are we testing?
- What is this exercise really trying to reveal?
Suddenly everything became clearer.
Design Thinking, for example, stopped feeling like a mysterious innovation framework and started looking much more human:
- Understand people
- Define the real problem
- Generate ideas
- Build something testable
- Learn and improve
That’s basically it.
The rest is mostly naming conventions.
My Project Changed How I Saw UX
One of the projects in my course focused on housing discovery and decision-making. We interviewed people in different life situations, explored how they compare homes, and tried to understand what actually influences their decisions.
At first, the process felt buried under terminology.
We created:
- affinity maps
- insight statements
- opportunity statements
- HMW questions
- mental models
And initially it all felt unnecessarily theatrical.
But once I translated the terminology into plain language, the value became obvious.
A “mental model” was simply:
how users think this world works.
An “affinity map” was:
grouping patterns in messy research.
An “insight statement” was:
what important thing we learned.
And “How Might We” questions were basically:
turning problems into open questions instead of jumping to solutions too quickly.
Underneath the corporate workshop vocabulary were genuinely useful ways of thinking.
The problem wasn’t the ideas.
The problem was the presentation.
The UX Industry Sometimes Performs Intelligence Instead of Creating Clarity
This is the part people rarely say out loud.
Some areas of UX culture reward complexity more than clarity.
The language becomes inflated:
- innovation theatre
- strategic jargon
- endless frameworks
- abstract diagrams
- process worship
And ironically, this can move us further away from users instead of closer to them.
Because real users do not speak in UX terminology.
Users speak in frustration:
“I can’t find it.”
“This feels confusing.”
“I don’t know what happens next.”
“I don’t trust this.”
Good UX work often comes from simplifying reality, not decorating it.
And I think that’s partly why I started this blog.
UX Uncovered Became My Translation Layer
I realized I was naturally rewriting everything I learned into clearer language anyway.
Not because I wanted to reject UX, but because I wanted to understand it properly.
Once stripped down, the field became far more interesting to me.
Because underneath the jargon, UX is actually about very human things:
- uncertainty
- trust
- clarity
- behavior
- decision-making
- cognitive effort
- emotional reassurance
That’s fascinating.
And honestly, much more fascinating than pretending sticky notes are sacred methodology.
So Where Do I Stand on UX?
I don’t think UX is fake.
I think parts of the industry sometimes confuse process with insight.
Frameworks are useful. Shared terminology is useful. Structure is useful. Teams need alignment and communication.
But terminology should support understanding, not replace it.
The best UX thinking I’ve seen usually sounds surprisingly simple when explained clearly.
That’s the kind of thinking I’m interested in:
- practical
- behavioral
- psychologically grounded
- structurally clear
- focused on real human problems
Not complexity for the sake of sounding strategic.
Why I’m Writing This Blog
UX Uncovered started because I needed a clearer way to think through the field myself.
Now it’s becoming something bigger:
a space where I can document what I’m learning, question the parts that feel inflated, and uncover the ideas underneath the language.
Not to reject UX.
To rationalize it.
To make it clearer. More human. More grounded.
And maybe help other people who feel like they’re spending more time translating UX than actually learning it.
Because once you strip away the performance, UX becomes much easier to see.
And honestly?
Much more interesting.
KATZE DESIGNS 
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