UX Poetry

Congratulations. You may have just clicked on our first-ever (maybe the first ever) UX poem. What do you think?  I guess I’m outing myself as a poet too.  Hi!   The BP homepage was a challenge from Nate to write about our work, hopefully the first of many.

By the way, you can see more of my non-UX-related work at http://www.cydharrell.com if you’re interested.  And if you’ve never seen the Joyce Kilmer poem on which this is based, it’s here.

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UX Poem

I think that I shall never see
a website lovely as a tree
diagram—

a diagram that in its lines
elucidates the way one finds

most any leaf; assuming though
that “one” is not just anyone

(not me, not you—some more abstract
persona that we all can act

as, as we drive agreement
on the structure and IA,
with proper reference to requirements
and use cases of course.)

But I’m pretty sure I’ll never see
a user navigate a tree

like a cat or a persona.
All those things in the forest
between us and home?

They’re big blurs of green to fools like me
not made by god for climbing trees.

–Cyd Harrell, 2009