Yahoo design theorist Joy Mountford may not have had much of a job — but she was hounded out of Yahoo in a particularly nasty way, we hear, and it's left her thirsting for payback. Her responsibilities were taken away weeks before her job was officially axed in last week's mass layoffs. Mountford is now planning to start a new consulting company, and we hear she hopes to reassemble her old Yahoo team, the user-experience group known as "Yhaus," before they scatter. There's just one hitch to her comeback strategy.

Famed — and famously unproductive — interaction theorist Joy Mountford was not the only designer let go from Yahoo this week. Her entire "Design Innovation Team," known in Sunnyvale as yHaus, was let go. Which makes sense. While designers love innovation, consumers usually reject it.

Joy Mountford, vice president in charge of Yahoo's user experience and design group, was among those laid off, we're told. Mountford founded Apple's human-interface group, wrote books, gave lectures, and encouraged designers to race toy babies by licking lollipops. She did everything, in short, except contribute visibly to shipping a product of consequence. The Yahoo of 2008 has no room for trophy executives.