UX Designer Loses His Job Over E-mailed Criticism

Hoo boy: another (apocryphal) lesson of the dangers of e-mailing from your work account and the foolishness of trusting corporations.

The story: UX designer Dustin Curtis wrote a blog post criticizing American Airlines’ web site (it is pretty awful, in our humble opinion, but why single out AA? There are plenty of bad web sites out there). And to his surprise, a designer contacted him back, explaining, in essence, “yes, our web site isn’t that great, but there are a lot of levels of corporate hierarchy that a redesign has to go through, and it’s not as easy as just making a mockup and running with it.”

Big mistake.

“AA searched their exchange database for the text I posted, found the guy, and fired Mr. X on the spot. From what I have learned, they also threatened him with legal action if he spoke to me again. Apparently he broke his non-disclosure agreement by discussing the design process at AA,” Curtis wrote.

Sorry, dude.

Your work e-mail is never, ever safe.

But in “Mr. X”‘s defense, one might expect that a modicum of criticism would be tolerated, even by a behemoth of a company. Here’s one of the uber-duber trade secrets he revealed:
“The group running AA.com consists of at least 200 people spread out amongst many different groups, including, for example, QA, product planning, business analysis, code development, site operations, project planning, and user experience.”

Another trade secret: “We have a lot of UX improvements coming down the line, most of which we’ll incorporate over the next 12 — 18 months as new projects go live. Some of our slated efforts include improved navigation; 16 column grid-based layouts; a lighter, more airy visual design; improved user interactions; and an increased transparency to fares and sales policies across the board.”

We’re torn between what to think here. On the one hand: boneheaded move, using your work e-mail. On the other hand: can you really fire a designer for giving away the secret of your airy design? Really?

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