No MoonPies for gatekeepers

I was three bites into a MoonPie when I came across an essay about UX Gatekeepers. Despite the crumbs, I like MoonPies; gatekeepers, not so much. In fact, I’d recently written a screed that touched on self-professed design gurus. I didn’t reference gatekeeping specifically, but it was an oblique subtext to the entire piece.

After finishing my MoonPie, I decided to take another stab at the topic of gatekeepers. Maybe this time I’d be a bit less oblique and a bit more succinct. An admittedly questionable assumption given that I’m two paragraphs in, and I’ve spent half my time talking about MoonPies. Mmmmm, MoooonPiiiiies.

Let’s reset, shall we? Great, thanks.

Gatekeeping is a kind of blobby, oily thing that’s defined slightly differently in each telling. Common traits include an air of superiority, pedantry and dismissiveness manifested in the words and actions of older UX professionals¹ toward younger ones, especially when the younger ones are just entering the field. Digging deeper into root causes and effects can be fascinating, yielding an angry cauldron of dissent and debate.

As I’m not in a particularly academic mood tonight, I’ll simply define gatekeeping as “UX professionals about my age being jerkwads toward noobs.” Inelegant, perhaps, but serviceable nonetheless.

The irony of older UX’ers engaging in so-called gatekeeping is that there were almost no gates when we started out. It was the Wild West: if you were a halfway decent designer and capable of turning some creaky HTML and spacer gifs into a website, you were employable.

If, on top of that, you had instincts about human psychology and knew some rudimentary business concepts, you’d be treated like the white collar professional your parents always hoped you’d be. You might even find yourself holding a comped airline ticket to interview at some Bay Area startup, Manhattan “new media” agency, or square state brick-and-mortar whose executive board was banking on you and a cadre of other geeks preventing them from eating the pixel dust of their tech-savvy competition.

I know, because I was there.

“Daily yoga sessions, a sign-on bonus, AND free snacks? Does that include MoonPies?”

Ours is an imperfect art, and an even more imperfect science. Rapid adaptation and a penchant for flouting conventional wisdom were—and remain—the hallmarks of a good UX’er. In this regard, newer UX’ers are uniquely equipped by dint of their lack of preconceptions and ability to ignore, or be blissfully unaware of, established processes and artifacts in favor of newer, more innovative ones. I can hear some seasoned UXers groaning, “These norms exist for a reason!” Sure, as do top-down site maps and Balsamiq², but when was the last time you used either?

I’ve made a living doing something I enjoy with people I like. That’s no small thing.

Expertise and pattern recognition are among the most valuable gifts bestowed upon the grizzled UX’er. They’re the proud scabs and scars of the battle-hardened pro, the designer who’s had to defend their very existence, not just their work. But these gifts don’t grant the recipient the right to bonk noobs on the head with a wand of negativity. Nastily telling someone they’re doing it wrong, or ignoring them altogether, is to engage in a kind of pernicious hypocrisy. If you’ve ranked up to the point where gatekeeping is even a possibility, you certainly owe your ascent at least in some part to a few naive souls having been willing to take a chance on Younger You.

This profession has rewarded me. I wandered a vast desert spotted with occasional creative oases, from architecture to industrial design, fine art to photography, graphic design to animation. None of them were enticing enough for me to stick around. When, in the mid 90s, I posted some janky HTML to the internet with an FTP client, I knew I’d found a profession to call my own. Not only to call my own, but to build from the ground up with a bunch of other inexperienced but perpetually curious and creative do-gooders.

Outside of the dot-com years, there were no promises of riches. But, aside from the occasional layoff or perpetually hair-raising project deadlines, it’s been a good gig. I’ve made a living doing something I enjoy with people I like. That’s no small thing.

True, I’ve lost sleep and hair trying to figure out how to extract a decent user experience from the gaping maw of corporate ineptitude or greed (sometimes both!). If you’ve been doing this a while, back me up when I say the greatest challenge isn’t the work itself, but the clients and stakeholders perpetually inclined toward self-sabotage.

The most frustrating designer isn’t an enthusiastic one, but an ambivalent one, the kind who phones it in.

And yet, I persist. Why? Because I get to make things people use. I get to improve stuff. I get to be creative, to solve problems. And while doing all that good stuff, I get to help define and redefine the very practices, principles, and tools that define our trade.

Most precious of all, I get to work with other designers. I love the energy, enthusiasm and goodwill they bring to their work, and this is particularly true of the least experienced among them, the ones whose souls haven’t been crumpled like a MoonPie wrapper.³ The most frustrating designer isn’t an enthusiastic one, but an ambivalent one, the kind who phones it in. So why, then, would I gatekeep the ones who are optimistic and enthusiastic? It’s counterintuitive.

Confession: I feel a twinge of sympathy for the gatekeepers. Sometimes it seems they’re motivated by a misguided desire to protect the young guns from the comedic tragedies that lay ahead. Sometimes their gatekeeping seems to be rooted in a well-earned if unnecessary sense of authority or pedantic expertise, like Gordon Ramsay berating a culinary student for boiling a filet mignon.

As often as not, however, their gatekeeping seems to stem from an understandable if misguided existential angst, the fear of being replaced. Why “misguided”? As we age, our value to the profession comes not so much from the things that are easily done by someone younger and cheaper, but from the things the younger, cheaper crew can’t offer—yet.

Rarely do good things come from insecurity. My value is no longer in my ability to sling code or half-ass my way through a design spec (not that I won’t give it a shot when given the chance). My value lies in the exact thing that could provoke my fear of being replaced: my age. Or, more accurately, my years of experience. When this nerve tingles, I remind myself that, of course I’m going to be replaced, but that I’m still fortunate enough to be in a position to help shape my tiny corner of the profession. I can choose to do so with an air of superiority, or with grace and goodwill.

As seasoned UX professionals, we claim to be driven to create meaningful, enjoyable, engaging experiences. Why should we limit that drive to user flows and wireframes? We should apply it to the experiences and opportunities we’re offering the designers waiting to fill our shoes. We should treat them with the care and respect we claim to offer our imaginary personas and archetypes.

I need to talk about UX bootcamps for a moment. In specific, how bootcamps might be contributing to the perception that ours is an industry full of gatekeepers.⁴

Bootcamps seem hellbent on churning out legions of uniformly composited UX’ers who end up shocked to learn that, even as our profession risks maturing into congealed certitude, creativity combined with depth and breadth of experience still wins when competing against generic competence and baseline expertise.⁵

I try not to level my frustration at bootcamp grads themselves. They thought they were doing the right thing.

And so, at least once a month, I get an unsolicited note on LinkedIn or via email from a recent bootcamp graduate lamenting their situation and asking for guidance. Because I’m human (and trying to avoid being a gatekeeper myself), I respond with empathy and a word of advice: “Keep going! You earned your learner’s permit. Now practice parallel parking!” In some cases, when I have time, I’ll do a quick in-person portfolio review and chat session.

Still, I’m basically helping zero percent — and I’m pretty sure that’s more than many of my peers. It wouldn’t surprise me if bootcamp grads are getting cold-shouldered from UX professionals and reading that aloofness as gatekeeping. It’s also not hard for me to imagine some of my peers responding negatively to their pleas, perhaps with derision or pedantry. Those responses might, in my opinion, qualify as gatekeeping. I’m sympathetic, though, since it’s hard not to be frustrated with this state of affairs. I just try not to level my frustration at bootcamp grads themselves. They thought they were doing the right thing.

Jerks! I almost forgot to mention jerks!

Sometimes, gatekeepers are just jerks. They’re jerks on Twitter, they’re jerks on LinkedIn, they’re jerks at work, and they might even be jerks at home. Sometimes they host conferences, give talks, write books. Those are the Mega Jerks, the ones who create a kind of cult of personality founded on a manufactured superiority. Manufactured because, frankly, many of them haven’t done any firsthand UX work in years, if ever.

And, for whatever reason, some sizable group of us think, “Wow, that person knows their sh*t. Just look at how confident and outspoken they are.” No, they’re just jerks, and the UX profession among all professions really should be a jerk-free zone. Put another way, sometimes what’s labeled as gatekeeping is just a jerk being a jerk. This isn’t a pass, mind you, just a note, a reminder, that not everything needs to be turned into a systemic pathology.

So, what should we do to address the problem of gatekeeping?

To the potential gatekeepers: Be of use. Help out. Return the occasional unsolicited plea for help. Offer feedback with grace and humility. Push back when you see someone else gatekeeping. Check your insecurities, ditch your pedantry, and pay it forward.

To the potentially gate-kept: Keep your chin up. Keep reaching out. Don’t buy into the negativity. And, most of all, get really good at your craft; your best defense is a strong offense.

To the MoonPie company: keep doing what you’re doing.

¹ Gatekeeping is age agnostic, but I’m in the mood to level my Anger Ray at UX’ers who fall roughly into my age / experience bracket.

² Sorry, Balsamiq. I’ll always have a soft spot in my heart for your lo-fi squiggly wires, but I’ve gotta call ‘em as I see ‘em: Figma took the crown (for now).

³ Despite evidence to the contrary, this essay was not sponsored by the MoonPie company. Still, if they find it in their hearts to send me a box, I won’t say no. (❤️ Chocolate is my favorite.)

⁴ In her essay, Lets Talk About UX Gatekeeping, the always fearless

⁵ Check out