Want to know more details on the resurgence of user experience? Check it out on Small Business Trends – Simplify This: User Experience Experts Are in Demand

There’s just one problem: not everyone calling themselves a user experience designer is actually a user experience designer. Unfortunately the designation isn’t as clear cut as a doctor or a lawyer. Most professions are certified and regulated, so you don’t see impostor behavior often — and when you do, it’s typically in the form of a news article about someone going to jail for fraud. Perhaps more analogously, even those in non-regulated occupations like writers and programmers would have a hard time passing themselves off as such without actually writing or actually programming.

So, how do you tell is someone is REALLY a true user experience professional, or a wannabe? Whitney posts a 10-point list answering the question, “You’re not a user experience designer if…”

It’s a good overview of some of the key things we focus on as UX professionals. Check it out at Whitney’s Blog!

Here’s a summary of the conference on Mad*Pow, the organizer of the event:

Mad*Pow and Claricode are partnering to host the first-of-its-kind Healthcare Experience Design Conference. The one-day conference will be held on April 11, 2011 at the Fairmont Copley Hotel in Boston, and is designed to inspire and empower thought leaders, students, and working professionals in the fields of healthcare design, usability, and technology development.

Conference details, including featured speakers and registration information can be found at Healthcare Experience Design -Improving Health Through Design and Technology

As a long-time user experience practitioner, I was taken aback by these attack from many sides. However, as my partner at Success PragmatiQ, Larry Marine, and I have come to realize, there is some truth to these concerns. Larry and I have addressed these issues in a number of articles and blog posts. Read on…

First, there has been a historic battle in Agile development camps as to the importance and place in the agile process. Many agile developers don’t see a need for up-front user research and product design. Unfortunately, agile is a development process and not a design process. Larry Marine and I addressed this problem in a recent article, “The Grand Design in Improving Agile Success,” on the new Software Quality Connection website. Our approach is that up-front, user-centered research can define users’ problems and create a design that solves these problems. User experience design can then be integrated into the agile process with parallel sprints that preceed development work. Read our article and let us know what you think!

Secondly, other articles have stated that user-centric design approaches don’t produce breakthrough designs. Read “User-Led Innovation Can’t Create Breakthroughs; Just Ask Apple and Ikea” at Fast Company’s Co.Design. Their premise is that listening to users and user-led design produces incremental improvements to design and sameness rather than innovative products. Our response to this is presented in Larry’s blog, “Mediocrity in Design.” Our response will definitely stir the pot! Again, please let us know what you think.

Finally, Larry was interviewed in Boulder by Allison Tatterson, where he spoke about user experience and what product managers should know about it. View the interview text and video. Here’s a snippet of what Larry had to say:

Every interaction someone has with a product, service, or company, creates an “experience,” including the branding, messaging, product positioning, sales channels, ordering/purchasing process, as well as the actual use of the product. Every touch-point combines to create a general perception by the users, and, as the saying goes, a chain is only as strong as the weakest link. That experience sets the tone of how that user will perceive the company and all aspects of it, including other products and services. User-experience design is the process of managing those experience touch points to achieve a specific desired effect. Good experience design is all about setting and managing specific expectations and experiences.

Along these lines, I wrote a brief article, ”Effective Website Design – It’s all about managing expectations!” – in RMDMA Magazine (Page 4). Same topic – managing expectations about website design.

We hope this will generate comments and discussion about the drawbacks and improvements to be made in user experience and user-centered design. There’s nothing like a frontal attack to rally the troups!!

From the IxDA website:

In this free eBook, ‘UX Storytellers – Connecting the Dots’, 42 UX masterminds tell personal stories of their exciting lives as User Experience professionals.

The book brings together authors from around the world who paint a very entertaining picture of our multifaceted community.

Whether you’re a usability pro or a student of interaction design, whether you’re a senior information architect or a junior UX designer, you will find 42 entertaining stories in this book told by leading experts from all over the globe.

<< Download the eBook now! >>

<< View Blog >>

http://www.nickfinck.com/blog/entry/gifts_for_user_experience_geeks_2009/

http://www.insideria.com/2008/12/what-makes-a-user-experience-e.html

We continue to gain recognition for our contribution to the IT industry. The article notes one drawback about our industry, as we continue to face push-back from our (potential) clients:

A potential downside of this career is that shortsighted companies believe they can make products without a specifically trained usability expert, so you may have to spend considerable time justifying your service’s value. Another drawback is that you may need to make efforts to avoid being typecast as someone who can help design only one kind of product.

Link: http://www.usnews.com/articles/business/best-careers/2007/12/19/usabilityuser-experience-specialist-executive-summary.html

Comments?

I am participating on an exciting panel of expert consultants at the 2007 UPA conference. It should be a great time. Please check out the Advance Program. Here’s a brief overview of our panel:

So You Want to Be a Rock Star (Usability Consultant)

Expert consultants with more than 100 years of combined industry experience will provide brief operational/professional overviews of their practice. They will discuss achievements as well as challenges in their varied types of consulting organizations and practice focus. Lively question/answer and discussion will educate usability practitioners contemplating consulting or already consulting.

Type: Panel
Curricula: Strategy & Organization
Presenter(s):

• Aaron Marcus (Aaron Marcus and Associates, Inc.)
• Janice James (Perficient)
• Theo Mandel (Interface Design and Development)
• Larry Marine (Intuitive Design)
• Nicholas Simonelli (Performance, Research, and Design)

Audience: Everyone
Time: Thursday, June 14, 2007: 8:30AM �� 10:00AM

Come join the fun in beautiful Austin, Texas!