On 2/4/08, Murli Nagasundaram <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > So, from the perspective of today's User Experience professional -- where > does a UXP's responsibility end? Does a UXP's responsibility today > encompass everything that traditionally was the domain of the folks who > gathered requirements and wrote the specs. So, for instance, if somebody > were to think of embarking on a project like The Coordinator today, would > the UXP, even while such a project was being mooted, raise red flags and > suitably modify the goals of the project?
Good question, Murli. That's something I've been thinking about since I had a very interesting experience with my Netflix queue. <geek> My wife and I were happily watching our way through all 10 seasons of Stargate: SG-1 when, somewhere around season 7, the next disc was listed as having a "Very Long Wait." So instead of sending us the disc *after* the delayed disc, Netflix sent us the first disc of the next *series* in our queue, Stargate: Atlantis. </geek> I've been wondering for weeks now whose decision or insight that was. Was user research conducted, leading to an insight that led to this modification of business process? Or is there someone at Netflix who is separately responsible for designing business process in a customer-centric way? This is the sort of thing that toes what I perceive to be a nebulous line between something called "user experience" and something else called "customer experience." In my mind, which obsessively classifies things, I have defined "UX" to refer to experiences a user directly has with a product, while "CX" refers to experiences a user has surrounding their acquisition and ownership of a product *or service*. Taking it a step further, I see UX as an *element* of CX. If you've created a crappy product, that's going to have a negative impact on the customer's perception of your company, no matter how helpful and smiley your sales & tech support staff are. So in my Netflix example, something like rearranging my queue or finding a (good) sci-fi movie I actually *haven't* seen would be an example of user experience. My joy at not having to be lost or suffer plot spoilers after missing 4 episodes of SG-1 would fall under customer experience. As to whose responsibility this is? Well, I'm going to take a cop-out by saying that while UX is definitely the UXD's responsibility, CX is the responsibility of the entire product development team, possibly the entire organization. In large organizations, I've seen them split off the research, UXD, and usability testing functions to different individuals. Research communicates their findings to UXD, who then implements a design based on those findings. Usability then evaluates the design and suggests revisions. In the way that responsibility for UX is shared in this situation, I see CX as simply encompassing more roles/individuals... BA, product managers, executives, marketing, etc. So to finally answer your question, Murli, I'd say that the UXD's *primary* responsibility ends at the user's interaction with the actual product. However, due to their unique and detailed knowledge of customer needs/desires/contexts/etc., business process or CX design should be a secondary responsibility. At the very least, UXDs in a given organization should have some defined avenue toward influencing decisions that will affect CX. Thoughts? - Fred ________________________________________________________________ *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
