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How user experience professionals need to change
User experience professionals need to come out of the ivory tower, expand their horizons, put down their frameworks, pick up their empathy and listening skills, and work with the people - facilitating a connection between stakeholders in the organization and actual real live customers. Such was my message in my interview with UXMag today (to be posted soon).
Then just now I came across a quote that describes the trend perfectly. I've edited it slightly from the original, which appears in David Brooks's column today:
One gets the sense, at least from the outside, that the intellectual energy is no longer with the [practitioners] who construct abstract and elaborate models. Instead, the field seems to be moving in a humanist direction. Many [practitioners] are now trying to absorb lessons learned by psychologists, neuroscientists and sociologists. They're producing books about subjects such as how social identities shape choices.
Brooks is actually talking about economists, but I think this could - or should - be applied to user experience professionals, if and when they really start a transformation of the discipline.
One good way to make the change is to attend Gel 2010, coming up next month in New York. Tickets still available.
UX professionals should leave the Ivory tower? Ha! The trend today is that most have never even entered it. To become a Certified User Experience professional today all you have to do is pass the HFI multiple choice test and you're in. These professionals have no training in Basic Psychology, or Research Methods, or even the Scientific process. Instead the field is being contaminated by hearsay "research findings" and interpretations that are lacking in any real scientific processing. Many have forgotten the basic teaching that any and all psychological topics or issues should address the behavioral, cognitive, and emotional components. I got a real kick a few years back when many UX professionals suddenly "discovered" that usrs have emotonal reactions to interfaces and there is more than behavioral issues. My biggest fear todat is that the "new" breed of UX professionals are turning the fiel into an A-1 form of "Crago Cult Science" which was warned by Richard Feymna years ago. What is Cargo cult science. Go to this link which is one of the first articles I assign to my classes in HF or Research Metdods. (Cargo cult science -- http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.pdf)
Big agreement with Regis here. "Hearsay findings", anecdotal knowledge, tribal knowledge are common. Cargo cult science indeed.
Virtually none of the UX professionals at my company or that I know have ever spent any time in the ivory tower, none have any academic credentials in the field and few are even interested in following developments from academia. If anything, I think more UX professionals need to study--actually study, not just glance over--research methods, design methods, and even stuff like product management or business.
Loved the cargo cult reference, thx. The main point I take away from Feyman's lecture is the importance of integrity - reporting results even if they're not what clients (or you!) want to hear. That, to me, is the essential ingredient in rigorous research.
Regis makes a very good point. Nearly every UX professional I know is self-taught; what we would consider the foundations of our discipline are scattered across multiple schools and departments, and not everyone can afford to travel / attend the few universities that offer proper comprehensive training in the field. The upshot being, if there is an ivory tower, it's not a very big one.
Wrote a bit about it here, which pertains mostly to Montreal, but I'm sure the situation is similar elsewhere.
http://ajkandy.wordpress.com/2010/04/01/the-state-of-ux-education-in-montreal/
Never knew what a cargo cult was before now, but man does it all make a whole lot more sense having read its Wikipedia page now. The internet itself just makes more sense, even. Thank you.