Design / Redesign

(In Industries, not disciplines)

This article was published in ACM interactions Nov-Dec 2005, as:

Minding your User's Business

The User Experience (UX) field has evolved numerous distinctive niches and disciplines: user researcher, ethnographer, usability analyst, interface designer, interaction designer, information architect. There are real differences among the skills needed for these different UX approaches, which I refer to as “skill disciplines.” Clearly, the jobs of UX and HCI have become more specialized, in terms of such skill disciplines. However, another issue is the question of specialization within an industry or content domain. In the past, if working in one industry, such as automotive or insurance, we expected our skills to remain portable across work domains. That may be less viable nowadays. We hear of employers requesting “T-shaped” skill sets (with a deep ascender on the T), with the expectation of disciplinary mastery. So how deeply must we understand the business of our users to effectively design for them?

Why Specialize?

User experience is no longer a general practice of applying human factors principles to software and product design. To some extent, we all specialize in skill disciplines. However, it appears fewer of us explicitly constrain our practices to industry or domain. Rather, most in our field attempt to position themselves as cross-domain generalists. Although many UX consultants claim they can learn a user’s work domain equally well across clients and organizations, there are reasons to question this practice.

One, if we are honest, we may realize we do a much better job at research and design when we deeply understand the user’s work and the business drivers behind their practices. When we work across many types of projects we have insufficient time to build this understanding in a line of business. When we specialize in just a few domains, we have both skill and domain expertise to offer.

Two, we do a better job at UX process consulting with our clients when we understand their industry and the special needs of their users. If we are contributing to an organization’s usability practice, their product design process requires more than generic UX guidelines and best-practices. Different industries and organizations have different user relationships, which may require developing unique processes and methods. Our process recommendations have better staying power when we have a credible grounding in the client’s business.

From here I just list the buller points of the article. For details, find a print version!

• Knowing an industry’s state-of-the-art and practice leads to better UX
• Specialized domain knowledge makes us more efficient
• Domain expertise moves UX practice into business consulting
• Specialization can make us more effective at communicating with and influencing our clients
• The most useful user knowledge is often tacit and embedded in the domain practice
• We conduct better user research when seriously committing to a domain
• To specialize in skill, domain, or both?

Specializing is a choice, and it does not make sense for everybody. I have found that between the two dimensions of skill and domain, it often works to specialize in one and generalize in the other. However, from my vantage point, it appears that our field has over-emphasized skill specialization, and de-emphasized domain specialization. I think it is time to shift the balance toward industry specialization in UX. We provide extraordinary value by bringing an objective perspective to design problems, but grounded in an authentic understanding of the business and grasp of the user scenarios, content, and drivers in that industry. We can improve the credibility of our reporting and design recommendations when customers and decision makers are more likely to adopt our design proposals knowing they are grounded in a realistic understanding of their industry and competition, not just the superficial knowledge gained in a single project. We can build trust and credibility to advise at the organizational level, not just within defined projects. Working within a business area develops long-term relationships, connecting to industry networks and communities, expanding the range of value offered. Finally, commitment to an industry may also promote genuine caring, a desire to make a difference in the work lives of people we know well and whose problems we understand.

Brain Surgeon or General Practitioner?

I am not saying everyone in UX should specialize, but consultants should consider the value of dedicating practice to a few areas learned well. In all professions the highest-value practitioners specialize, from medicine and law to accounting and management consulting. The narrower concentrations often demand higher compensation. Having knowledge and personal networks in a practice area increases the economic value of advice, whether in pediatrics, tax law, or retail. In professional practice, domain specialization is a significant strength, not a liability of overly narrow application. And business strategists and top designers usually specialize in a field, such as retail, automotive, consumer goods. Why not in UX?