This is almost a given. You have to understand the business that you're working in (sometimes you can learn it too) in order to properly design something. As an example, I work in heathcare currently. If I didn't have some type of understanding of how this industry works, not only would I be designing things that may be inappropriate to a certain workflow, but I also might actually cause serious patient issues.
Not that you need to have that specific knowledge coming into a particular position, but you need to have a strong desire and ability to learn the domain quickly. On 10/15/07, 振奕杨 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I'm working for a software company which provides ERP application. And i > have a question : Should a usability engineer have the knowledge about the > professional area( such as accounting, supply chain management, > manufacture and so on)? > > My major is cognitive psychology. When i started my job 2 years before, i > got so frustrated that i even can't understand what users talking. > Because i don't know what exact task they would do with our application. My > education background don't contain those knowledge. Fortunately, I have > some colleagues who are expert in thoese areas. We worked together on > interaction designing and user testing. > > So in my opinion, the knowledge about the professional area is > very important to a usability engineer, especially when he is working for a > complex application system. But for the other side, it takes too much time > to master those knowledge. For me, i still avoid to hold a user > interview independently after 2 years later.It takes about 5 years to become > an expert of the application. > > I had got some other's opinion that a usability engineer doesn't need to > know such knowledge at all( but i didn't catch it clearly). What's your idea > ? > > Thank you! > > Yang Zhenyi > ________________________________________________________________ > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! > To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Unsubscribe ................ http://gamma.ixda.org/unsubscribe > List Guidelines ............ http://gamma.ixda.org/guidelines > List Help .................. http://gamma.ixda.org/help > -- w: http://www.davidshaw.info ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://gamma.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://gamma.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://gamma.ixda.org/help
