Don’t presume anything. Don't presume UX is simple.

I just read the post "UX is simple", and it triggers a lot of thoughts I've been having.

I know lots of places hiring experience visual designers or art directors as their user experience designer. These days some art directors are eager to get the keyword "user experience" in his/her resume, and I'm not surprised more and more art directors are comfortable making this change. However, is user experience only about layout the page in a sensible way?

I think there are reasons that user experience is not simple, even in the "layout the page" level":
1. When you have to review all UI element with all the high level guideline, it's not simple anymore.
2. When you make a change on 1 UI element and it affects 10 others, it's not simple anymore.
If you're a experienced art director, you might be handle these with clever solution. But is that everything about UX?

User experience is much more than putting the provided information in a sensible way. It's much more than show and hide, box and arrow. The first step of UX process is always about identifying; identifying the user (persona and context), identifying the business and technology requirement, identifying the user needs, identifying the pain point... These are the foundation to create good user experience, which is often missing in the project that no one really knows what UX is.

Here's a slideshow I found useful to communicate with people who really want to know what UX is:
http://www.slideshare.net/nickf/user-experience-best-practices


To sum up, design is about solving problem, and the more you know about the problem, the bigger the chance you can create a better solution. User experience design is a big problem solving process, it's not simple, but it really worth it if you really care about your user, your product, and your brand.