Comments on (Not) Defining the damn thing

Andrei Herasimchuk — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:51:39 GMT

“What exactly are we trying to label and define?”

The field. That is the most important, and the most needed right now. Once that is done, then define the distinctions in the field.

I call the field Product Design or more specifically, High-Tech Product Design. I call the three main aspects of High-Tech Product Deisgn: Visual Design, Information Design and Interaction Design.

“Who is the audience for our labels and definitions?”

Our co-workers or people who pull the purses strings inside corporations to fund our existence.

The problem with the discussions are as you point out, not qualified about why the discussions are occuring. When people talk to me about why there should be a need to create labels, I always answer for the above reasons.

It’s a business thing. Discussions otherwise are probalby pretty meaningless, but they are not meaningless when you are trying to get the money you need to pay for projects, resources, and people inside the walls of corporate America.

Andrei

Scott Abel — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:51:39 GMT

I think much of this issue stems from the fact that we’re human. I’ve read many of the posts relating to this discussion (here and elsewhere) and it always seems to revolve around our human “need’ to define ourselves.

What’s in a name? Well, if a name is content (it is), then we have to consider the first rule of content creation—Know thy audience! That said, I write different content for different audiences (based on educational level, time constraints, culture, etc.), so I feel free to call myself by whatever title that makes the most sense to my audience.

Rok Sesek — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:51:39 GMT

Hi everybody!

I totally agree with Brendan and Juan and I like the comparisons.

It looks like all the IAs are forgetting the fact that the language is a living thing – it changes and evolvs over the time and it is closely related with the changes and development of the society. Some 15 to 10 years ago nobody knew about the web and the title web designer meant nothing. Nowadays people know and talk about the web and the society has accepted web designers. But it looks like it’s not ready yet to accept all the different specialized professions which have evolved in these years. Be patient and accept the fact that all the professions and it’s titles were once at that stage.

But don’t forget that all these discusions about the titles and stuff are also part of the evolution of the language and society… Right?

Rok

Richard Dalton — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:51:38 GMT

Lou – i’m glad you’re not saying “don’t discuss this anymore” but rather “qualify your discussions” (at least I think thats what you’re saying).

Hear about the Cobler whose children never had any shoes? ;-)

- Richard

Ron Zeno — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:51:38 GMT

1) What is it that you do?
2) What knowledge and experience is required for what you do?
3) What knowledge, experience, skills, etc do you have in common with those you see as peers?

If you can answer all three, then a label for yourself and your peers means something, specifically it is a label for people who share the common knowledge, experience, skills, etc. that you’ve identified. Otherwise, the label is meaningless and/or a con.

Juan Lanus — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 03:39:49 GMT

Hi All

Louis, you are lacking a self-question that IMHO could be useful. It might be formulated like this:
“When you are seeking a job, what words do you look for?”
This might define the profession in terms of the other people, those willing to pay for the services.

Dave Heller lists some unambiguous jobs like for example “lawyer”.
Those profession names are unambiguous because their definitions settled after so many years.
Settled in the society, not in the professional associations or the ACM forums.
Anyway, “lawyer” is still ambiguous. It may be applied to a judge or a senator or a crow or so many other different flavours of the profession.

IMHO the professions Louis wrote about are specializations of a more general “systems design” profession. Hold on: I’ll try to explain.

Usability is not an option, period. You can’t build anything without usability at all.
Every development (web site, computer program, interactive device, you name it) has “usability”. High or low, it has one.

The same as some lawyers have started to consider human rights into their work, some systems developers are considering usability or IA or (you name it) into their designs.
It’s not that humans didn’t have rights before Carter, it’s that they didn’t have a name or were regarded as a given you shouldn’t care for.
The same for usability & co.
As I see it, it must be an integral part of the profession.
Then, we who care can specialize ad nauseam into our preferred facet.

JML

PD: I think that every user has an udeniable and natural right to operate programs in a humanly shape.
Really.

Frank Ramirez — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:51:38 GMT

Nice comparison Brendan. I wonder if anyone back then called themselves a “Transportation Architect”?

I am another Information Architect who speaks my title with chagrin and wouldn’t miss it.

Brendan Hamley — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 03:39:49 GMT

Louis, out of interest was this inspired by Tog’s comments: http://www.asktog.com/columns/057ItsTimeWeGotRespect.html… ?

I sympathise but disagree with both views.

When people start drawing their wagons together in this way they’ll have difficulty moving onwards.

The vexing thing is that we are too young as a profession to start defining ourselves so precisely. Should we yet dare to assume that this discipline is fully formed? Do a few conferences, some great discussion boards and one or two inspiring books make a vocation?

We’re still using big fat crayons to mark the blueprints others will follow in years to come. The explorations and discoveries we hopefully make, are the crayola of our working day.

Think about the auto industry when that was starting out, they must have had very similar dialogue…

“I build cars”
“No, you design motor vehicles”
“Actually you both create elegant transport solutions for horseless carriage manufacturers”

“OK, so what do the engineers do?”

Janice James — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:51:38 GMT

Lou,

Thanks for pointing out (as others have already done) and encouraging all to move on to focusing on issues more important than our titles!

Beth — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:51:38 GMT

Well, if these discussions are like the flu and make people want to barf, I guess that makes me Typhoid Mary.

My question is this: Are these discussions *really* drawing off incredible amounts of energy that would actually be utilized more effectively if the discussions weren’t held? Maybe it’s just me, but it seems that participating in discussions via lists and weblogs *don’t* require lots of energy…especially compared to big ticket items like organizing conferences and setting up local network groups.

Given this, I think it’s more appropriate to view these discussions as more of a symptom than a cause. The state of UX/ED/IA/ID has some scary similarities to the California run-off election…every time you turn around, there’s a new candidate. And unfortunately, we don’t have a deadline by which one of them will emerge the winner!

Gustavo Arizpe — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:51:38 GMT

However, I believe that most user experience professionals take a wrong approach when explaining their jobs. I wrote this to Mark today, inspired by the well known USP concept and the original audio logo concept I learnt from Robert Middleton:

“There have always been a lot of concern about the title for user experience professionals. I heartedly agree with your saying: who cares about the title? It’s important, however, that they CARE about what we can do and that they are certain that we can help them. If someone asks “what do you do”, “what is your job”, we’re dead if we answer with a generic description of our title. “I’m an usability professional”, “I’m an information architect” or whatever.”

“We should take a marketing approach when explaining what we do. We must explain the benefit we provide, so our listener really cares about what we do.”

“For example, instead of saying: “I’m an information architect” we could say “I help my company to save tons of resources in support calls” “I generate new leads and revenues for my customers via their websites”, etc.

“Their answer could be “how do you do that”, and then you could explain in more detail. They CARE now, do you see? I’ve tried this dozens of times and, believe me, it works, not only for promoting my business but when evangelizing within a organization I’m already working with.”

Gustavo Arizpe — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 03:39:49 GMT

Last Week, Mark Hurst wrote a related article in Good Experience, and I made some comments to Mark that I posted in my weblog. believe they are very relevant to this topic, so I’ll post here an excerpt:

David Heller — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 03:39:49 GMT

As someone who usually revells in these debates, I want to point out some jobs that are completely unambiguous and everyone knows what the person does as soon as you say the one word title. I will say that these are generalist terms (which contradicts other things I have said here on b&a and elsewhere, but when I think about them now it begins to push me in that direction. Anyway here is the list:
Doctor, lawyer, nurse, architect, pilot, congressperson, dentist, etc.

I think it is for something like this that I am striving for in my need for title. I want in one word to be able to convey to the largest layperson audience what it is I do.

Then within our little group we have specializations.

For the lay people I’m a user experience designer. For all you I’m an interaction designer.

Maybe this is how we should start thinking of ourselves. It’s like going back to school and saying I am an anthropology major with a concentration in culture & personality. (that’s what I was, btw). So I would say I’m a user experience designer who specializes in interaction design.

Another reason this title thing is important is b/c as Lou said one of the great duties ahead of us is branding. Never met a brand that didn’t have a name associated with it at some level. Yes the name might not be the primary focus of a brand, but since brand is so much influenced by person to person x-communication, that communication has to be in some language that can convey a lot of meaning in a short spurt of syllables. There are so few “Artists formerly known as Princes” out there who can make their symbol into a name (of course I still had to say AFKAP to let you know who I was talking about).

Well, no matter how annoying everyone else thinks it is, I do think that until we nail this thing that we do down somehow, even if it is a moving target we are going to have a hard time in the following areas:
selling ourselves
educating ourselves
organizing ourselves
And just doing our jobs day to day b/c of the lack of understanding that our peers have w/ what we do.

—dave

Lyle Kantrovich — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:51:38 GMT

Excellent points, Lou. Unfortunately, I can’t find one I disagree with. :) Your article proves that “one good analogy is worth three hours discussion”, although in this case, it’s a list of questions, not an analogy.

What I find most valuable when I get together with a group of peers is focusing on the common struggle. Focusing on differences, definitions and labels only seems to confuse folks, or worse, alienate them.

“I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me.”
- Dudley Field Malone

Lyle
Croc O’ Lyle

Paul Nattress — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:51:38 GMT

Hi Lou,

I used to have the job title of Information Architect and I loved it. Trouble was, no one knew what it was or what it meant or what I did.

I now work for a different company, doing similar work but my title is Content Editor. I’m simply a web person who knows all about content, usability, IA and stuff. I’m not bothered about the job title anymore – I’m more interested in people knowing that my skillset includes information architecture. Or, in their terms, that I can make it easy to find stuff on our website. As long as they know that they should consult me when they need my help (and they know when it’s time to ask for help) then I’m happy.

I never liked the term Web Designer (the, admittedly unambiguous, term that Nick Finck from digital Web Magazine (http://www.digital-web.com/) prefers to use – it throws up images of snowboarding, bleached-blonde-haired cool dudes who say “whoah” all the time. But I still design sites.

When people ask what I do, I tell them “I work on my company’s website, making it easy to use and interesting”. They understand that as it’s not too techy and it’s not too designery.

So, in my opinion, the biggest problem associated with our attempts to define and redefine our profession is that we risk alienating the people who should really be understanding what we are capable of doing. Our employers, our clients, our bosses and our colleagues must know what our job titles mean and what our skills can produce. If that doesn’t happen, we will all be sitting at home with cool job titles but no work.