User Experience as a discipline is finally starting to be recognized by a wider audience. Two recent press mentions in major publications help to expose the value of our expertise, but as usual I find that they’re creating a greater distinction between design and usability than I’m comfortable with. I consider myself a user experience designer, which to me encompasses interaction design, interface design, information architecture and usability evaluation. The issue of what we’re called and how we present ourselves has been hashed out in many circles, and is particularly well articulated at Montparnas. The discussion is far from over, but I don’t think these articles will help the public perception.
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| Montparnas’ User Experience Diagram |
Ten Jobs You Didn’t Know You Wanted
Fast Company
Right up there with “flavorist,” “sensory brander” and “metaverse evangelist,” is the apparently equally fantastical INTERACTION DESIGNER!! Listed under “Enhancing Life and the Bottom Line.” That is quite a tall order! Who are these lucky suckers and how do they do their voodoo?
According to Fast Company, we “design innovative and user-friendly products.” While I’d hoped that we moved beyond technology simply being friendly to actually being usable, I still appreciate the effort.
It is noted that we investigate user behavior by creating personas of representative users, however they fail to mention that we actually — gasp! — talk to our users in order to get there. And by talk, of course I mean: observe, survey, interview, mind-read and bully.
The entry-level salary range they listed was certainly not something I experienced first-hand, despite the lovely framed piece of paper I have with my name on it. I’m curious to know where they got the figure, and question why they didn’t qualify it by company type (ad agency, design shop, in-house, consulting, etc) or industry.
Usability/User Experience Specialist
A Day in the Life
U.S. News & World Report
On the flip side is the usability specialist, who too has “relentless curiosity about how to make products more user-friendly.” However the role is described as conducting research to determine potential users’ needs and then once a prototype is built to observe them use the product and recommend improvements. The in-between part? I suppose that’s the interaction designer’s job.
I particularly appreciated the list of resources they provided. At least that will allow readers to get a broader sense of what we actually do. Unfortunately all of the books they listed were written before 2000 — no disrespect to Norman, Nielsen or Krug. I understand that they’ve updated their books more recently (Norman in 2002 and Krug in 2005) and they’re certainly biblical works in our field, but a lot more has been published on the subject in the past few years.
The thing that bugs me most about the article is the “Day in the Life” — describing the variety of activities a usability specialist endures as the only person at the company who actually cares about the user –because again they fail to mention, even allude to, the mountain of energy, creative thought, synthesis, genius and discipline that goes into actually CREATING THE PRODUCT. Instead they painfully note that “engineers develop a prototype,” glossing over the how. I think it goes without saying that I find this to be the most critical part of the process. It’s the difference between great intentions and great results.
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About Whitney Hess
Whitney Hess is a coach and writer helping product teams and senior leaders make better decisions through the principles of user experience. She believes empathy builds empires.