Best Careers 2009: Usability Experience Specialist

How The Profession Is Being Diluted

The way I see it, interaction designers should be in 2 camps: those that put together the interface based on user analysis. Then there is the developer side, who creates the prototype and ensures it is usable from a technical perspective. With different browsers and screen resolutions, understanding the technical side such as CSS, JavaScript ensures the layout renders correctly and can downloaded as quickly as possible. Sadly, most positions today combine both skills into one to save money -- which dilutes the quality of the product. This is caused by a tremendous lack of understanding by HR and company management into how the usability process should work.

Also the article had no focus on content usability specialists. While most sites make the page look compelling, the content is often poorly written. Why? Many projects tend to put content at the end of the project. This approach helps ensure that the stakeholdrers get their whiz bang wow factor of looking at slick prototypes to justify the project in the first place. There is little attention given to content since its not "slick" but is an essential part of usability.

Joa of IL @ Sep 21, 2009 18:39:32 PM

Job titles don't matter - results do

I agree with many points here...

My job title is "Key Expert for Ergonomics". My responsibility is to drive Ergonomic Design within the company and help the product development teams to integrate usability and ergonomics into their products.

I have a background in Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering with a PhD in Ergonomics. Later I also added an MBA to that, but mainly to convince the marketing guys that I know what they are talking about...

Btw, my engineering background is great since I often have to argue with engineers/developers.

The tricky part in my job is to find a good balance between business, technology and usability issues. I call that the "Ergonomic triangle", where we must find a compromise between business/COGS, technical requirements and usability/ergonomics.

From my point of view design should not be the fourth force, but rather a good "formal" designer should integrate all points.

Unfortunately too many designers fail at this point, as more often than not they miss both, the technical background and the usability know-how.

(I am quite fortunate to have a design manager in my company who understands and promotes this view of design)

So, yes, I agree, our profession is desperately needed. We all have to use products day-in day-out (from hand tools to washing mashines to cars to remote controls to mobile phones to computers) that are anything but user-friendly. The biggest problems I see are

1) Often enough users got used (sic!) to poor usability, so technical guys do not see the need for better usability.

2) Everybody understands that a cordless screw driver or a hammer drill or a circular saw cannot be sold without a functioning electrical motor, but it is no problem to sell these tools with a poor HMI...

There is only one solution to this issue:

1) connect with the developers, then

2) cooperate with them to solve their problems (and not just tell them what they should do...), and then

3) convince them (by providing great solutions).

In my experience, if you help them to improve their product once, they will come back to you with their next project.

And this is the key point:

If you do it right, people in your company will not think "Maybe we should call the usability/ergonomics/interface/HF/... people" but they will simply think: "Dr. Joe must be part of the project team"

Job titles don't matter, results do.

Joe Vedder @ May 11, 2009 02:45:35 AM

User Experience

I'm glad to see the profession listed as one of the best for the year, but I do not agree that the certification program of a consulting agency is the best path to the profession. From my 12 years in the industry and PhD in human factors from a good university program, I would like to let the readers know that while such certifications and courses might be good starting points to generate interest towards a serious academic program , they are by no means anywhere close to the 'real thing'.

If you are really serious about being someone good at doing this, save the money and work towards a good graduate program.

uxguy of CA @ May 02, 2009 23:41:49 PM

Good Design MATTERS.

The reason why this is one of the best careers is that designing with the users in mind is becoming a NECESSARY step in the product design process. I've been doing this for several years and I agree with other who are posting who say that "Usability Experience Specialist" is a mouthful of awkwardness (User Experience Designer is the preferred term in my experience, though I am soon to gain the title of "User Experience Architect").

When you have a company that embraces this discipline, you can really "move the needle" and improve both the usability of product offerings AND show true ROI for the design research that takes place. Another thing that's great about the field is the community - I can post stuff at my site, josephdickerson.com, about design theory and get great feedback from my peers within a few hours. And UPA and other groups like CHI are fantastic for networking and learning more design approaches.

I do this, and I love it. The more people creating better products through the user experience design process, the better!

Joseph Dickerson of GA @ Apr 30, 2009 20:46:56 PM

uxdesign.com

It is nice to know that ours is expected to be a "best" career. Those new to or considering entering the field will find this description greatly lacking, at some point, however.

In ten years of interactive system design and development (technical) experience, I have not seen "Usability Experience Specialist" as a job title. Until now. This is not to diminish it, only to set expectations for seeing it frequently. It is, I assume, the combination of Usability Specialist (or "Engineer" or "Analyst" or similar), and User Experience Designer, which are not uncommon titles/roles. Unfortunately, I'd say, "experience" is term de jour... expect to see it attached to almost anything these days, thus mean almost nothing, or at least nothing specific.

Allow me to recommend two books to readers of this article who are new to or considering entering the field:

One is ", The Psychology of Everyday Things" by Don Norman. A seminal work in this field. http://www.amazon.com/Psychology-Everyday-Things-Donald-Norman/dp/0465067093?tag=uxdesign-20

And "The Inmates Are Running the Asylum: Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity" by Alan Cooper (technologist and design methodologist). http://www.amazon.com/Inmates-Are-Running-Asylum-Products/dp/0672326140?tag=uxdesign-20

For usability professional qualification, I STRONGLY recommend Human Factors International's Usability Analyst certification: http://www.humanfactors.com/training/certification.asp

@"Usability as a profession" - Usability should NOT be a "subset of other professions..." you've listed. On the contrary, it is already a sub-discipline under Human Factors, which is a branch of cognitive psychology. Quite a different field from IT and engineering indeed. That is, usability is a profession for human performance measurement of a given design, as enabled by a given set of technologies.

Though technology is the great enabler of design, it is often not an enabler of usability. On the contrary. The usability practitioner looks at the system from "the outside in," and this point of view more often than not contradicts, both practically and philosophically speaking, the "inside out" point of view technology developers often hold. That said, collaboration between business, design, technology, and usability professions, perhaps because each can view the product or service so differently, is the most valuable of all professional skills and activities.

uxdesign.com of CA @ Apr 30, 2009 15:41:44 PM

Simplicity - The Ultimate Sophistication

As User Experience professionals, we battle a growing demand for more and more features on the web. Along with these features is the increasing demand that they be easy to use. Developing these elegant, powerful websites that are also practical, usable, affordable, satisfying to use, and accessible to all can be very challenging! That's why I love designing the User Experience!

At WebiMax.com, we strive to create websites and applications with a consistent, intuitive user experience. Our mission is simple... provide our clients with what they want most, RESULTS!

http://www.webimax.com

Scott Witwer of FL @ Apr 30, 2009 13:37:16 PM

UCSD Cog Sci

The deparment of Cognitive Science at the University of California, San Diego (where my favorite author on this subject Dr Don Norman used to teach before going off to Apple) is a good place to start looking for a User Experience (UX) school or a good place to hire like minded people from. http://www.ucsd.edu

Darrell Reich of CA @ Mar 18, 2009 17:02:41 PM

Language and Division

Language is everything. I've only been working in the field for 3 years, one should understand the language barriers between engineers and designers. As the Usability Experience person, you'll be often asked to translate your findings to those two key stakeholders. They speak very differently. Designer have pride in their "artwork" while engineers could careless about the user - so how do you make the user relevant to the two is the major question. I often say "it has to be usable and not a painting of the Sistine chapel" as for the engineer, graphs, average times and errors metrics catch their eye. ( videos of disgusted users work well for sales and management ) So a good healthy dose of quantitative, qualitative AND excellent extroverted, interpersonal, charm skills come in handy!

UsabilityEngineerCA of CA @ Mar 11, 2009 14:55:18 PM