In Portugal I'm the President of the Usability Professionals Association (APPU) and we had this problem in mind since the start. Unfortunately it's very common in Portugal to see people without any skills in a particular field to offer services within. Like everyone is a sort of a handiman, "Sure, I know how to fix your car AND the plumbing in your house".
So when we started APPU we outlined the membership requirements so that only people with at least minimum knowledge of the field are full members. All of the other ones are sort of "trainees" until they get more experience. That worked out quite well. Then, to prevent the problem with companies offering up services they don't know nothing about we develop an Accreditation system. Only companies with a full APPU member on their payroll and that prove to incorporate HCI methods in their development process can have this seal of approval. In the US, all of the Professional Associations, let anybody in. That's good to popularize the field but has this kinds of drawbacks. I believe that eventually in the end, costumers will be able to figure out if a company knows what it's doing or not, but we are still far from that. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://gamma.ixda.org/discuss?post=21962 ________________________________________________________________ *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ ________________________________________________________________ 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
