I saw that US News recently ran an article on the "Best Careers of 2008" (http://www.usnews.com/features/business/best-careers/best-careers-2008.html), and a new addition this year is "Usability/User Experience Specialist", which arguably we are. This seems like a great sign that we are nearing the tipping point, along with all of the good and bad things that come along with it.
Personally, I was excited to see it and rushed in to see what they were saying. I have built positions where I am heavily involved in the entire process, from ethnography and concepting through deployment. I may be atypical (and lucky), and I love seeing others' descriptions of the field for comparison. I read the executive summary, which is nice and succinct. Then I read the "Day in the life" for the position (http://www.usnews.com/articles/business/best-careers/2007/12/19/usabilityuser-experience-specialist-a-day-in-the-life.html), which is also succinct, but seems to miss a lot. The fact that this is focused on research doesn't bother me, but one paragraph does. If you don't want to read the short article, it is about a medical device and essentially states you get to know the user and business goals up until this paragraph. "You write a report summarizing what you've learned. Then, engineers develop a prototype of the product that comes closest to meeting both the company's and the surgeons' desires." I've certainly worked in situations where this has happened. The research is compiled, never presented, and engineers build something. However, I think the majority of what I do happens between those two sentences. Namely the "Design" portion. Translation of the research findings into useful items such as personas, scenarios, usage models, use cases, architectures, wireframes, even early functional prototypes are done by designers, interaction included. I don't think the reporter misunderstood the situation. I have spent a lot of time changing the "toss it over the wall" approach that a lot of companies employ. Checking off the research portion as done and handing the abstract documentation to engineers thinking it will somehow transfer all of the experience and understanding is unfortunately common. Science has a while before osmosis becomes a viable business practice. Thoughts? -Chris Dame http://theusabilityofthings.com ________________________________________________________________ *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://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
