It was a pleasure to work with you, as you and your team made this process a more pleasant experience for our team and the participants.
Karen Perry
In a blog post by Robert Fabricant (Jan 7, 2013) he calls User Experience “The new Black” borrowing the term from the fashion industry. ( see http://designmind.frogdesign.com/blog/user-experience-incorporated.html ). Fabricant talks about “The recognition of UX’s importance seems to be slowly sinking into corporate culture.” We feel that this is largely fueled by the proliferation of internet enabled mobile devices and a desire to create the next "killer" app that will make its developers millions overnight.
No one can be happier to wear the new black than us, and the majority of the “veteran” UX professionals out there – like the talented group of “Human Factors Scientists” that we worked with while at IBM back in the early 90s. It’s been a long time coming, and it’s been an interesting ride.
During the past few months there has been a lot of chatter in the twitter-sphere about UI and UX and how UI isn't UX. It is great to see this discussion, but it is not necessary to show how the sausage is made unless you are visiting inside the sausage factory. A successful User Experience requires a cross-functional team that includes, ethnographic researchers, visual designers, interaction designers, information architects, usability testers, content strategists, interface developers, quality assurance, training, and project management.
No one ever says, "wow that was a great PRD," or "I really like your functional interface specification document."
It is unfortunate that User Experience and User Interface design are typically defined by the artifacts that we produce and not by the thought processes that we perform to produce these artifacts. Site-maps, wireframes, prototypes, information architecture and even content strategy are indeed terms that are beginning to make it into the corporate culture. But, UX thought leaders are more than just "wireframe monkeys" and as soon as more corporate cultures realize this, UX will be integrated into the entire SDLC.
We are here to help your organization become as successful as possible. Take advantage of this ROI by contacting The Usability People today.