On Fri, Mar 27, 2009 at 3:02 AM, Jeremy Kriegel <[email protected]> wrote:

> I have recently gravitated to User Experience as an umbrella term,
> but I can't agree that 'User Experience Designer' is a title that
> we should all use. It is too generic. I'd equate it with calling
> anyone who writes code a 'Programmer' or 'Engineer'. It's just
> not specific enough to describe their set of skills.
>

Really?  Actually, it is pretty common for folks who write code to just have
something like that:

Software Developer
Software Engineer

"Programmer" has fallen out of favor in the last 10 years, from what I can
tell.

Job descriptions then provide the meat of what someone is looking for:

We're looking for a Java developer with at least 3 years experience using
EJBs.  Etc.

You might have qualifiers like "manager" and "senior" and "web" or levels
1-N.  But overall, the general title is acceptable and most widely used.  In
recent years "architect" has been gaining favor, but like in this community,
the meaning and duties are widely debated (ad nauseum).

I think "UX designer" is a good term for most folks and the various
activities can be delineated as needed.  Something like:

We're looking for a UX designer with at least 2 years of experience
designing software for mobile devices.

Interaction design, information architecture, user research, graphic design,
usability testing, etc.  These are all activities, and if you work somewhere
that can afford folks specialized in doing those, by all means use them as
titles, but it seems like the vast majority of folks end up having to do
some combination of them all.

But it is just weird, to me, to want to generalize the meaning of a specific
activity (interaction design) and expand its meaning to encompass all these
other activities that are better encompassed by a general term like UX
design.  I mean, if that's what the community decided they want to
standardize on, I'd go with the flow, but it's just odd to me.

Just my centage.

-ambrose
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