A UX strategist is supposed to bridge business goals and user needs through high-level planning. They’re meant to answer questions like “Should we build this?” and “Which problems matter most?” before anyone opens Figma.
In practice, most I’ve worked with excel at one thing: not committing to answers.
“Should we prioritize mobile or desktop?” “It depends on your user base.”
“Which feature should we ship first?” “It depends on your business goals.”
“When should we launch?” “It depends on market conditions.”
Every answer buys them more time to conduct another research phase, run another workshop, build another framework. They become professional question-deflectors who get paid to suggest you need more information before making any decision.
And here’s the thing – they’re not wrong. Everything in product development genuinely does depend on context. But when “it depends” becomes the primary output of someone earning $120-180 per hour, you’re not getting strategy. You’re getting expensive procrastination.
Just sounds like somebody who isn’t good at their job. “Not committing to answers” isn’t the role, the opposite is true.
And why is this article so antagonistic? The takeaway is…what, exactly? It’s obvious to anyone who’s been paying attention for the last few years that most companies working in tech desperately need UX—good, caring, talented people working in UX who are given real decision-making power. Otherwise the people making decisions are user-hostile FOMO VPs and C-suite types, and they’re making a damn mess everywhere.
The answer to bad UX designers isn’t no UX designers, it’s better UX designers. And give them some damn power already!
