Speaking to a recruiter friend of mine recently, I mentioned that job titles in the “experience” field have always been hard to understand. What’s the difference between all of these?
- user experience designer
- user experience analyst
- interaction designer
- user interaction designer
- visual designer
- information architect
- usability specialist
—
Mark Hurst, Good Experience Newsletter, March 12, 2009.
Mark Hurst, Good Experience Newsletter, March 12, 2009.
designslave
on 12 Mar 09“What’s the difference between all of these?”
about thirty to fifty thousand dollars.
;-)
Colin Summers
on 12 Mar 09Those are arranged in seniority order. The person at the top gets the most money. The person at the bottom is really just quality assurance but with a 301K. (No, it’s not a 401K anymore, check the market.)
I actually think #6 is different. That might have some more far-reaching responsibilities.
MT Heart
on 12 Mar 09Even the folks on the IxDA group have a hard time defining the differences because the roles overlap so often. But what’s more important is what the roles do, not what they’re called.
See the response by Andrei Herasimchuk (lead designer of Adobe Photoshop) about half way down.
http://www.ixda.org/discuss.php?post=39701
information architect
on 12 Mar 09Alex Rainert
on 12 Mar 09Nick Finck had a great post about this: http://www.nickfinck.com/blog/entry/the_ux_tribe_many_campfires_one_village/
As far as IA vs. ID, I thought this quote was great:
“I don’t think information architecture is at all the same as interaction design, one is about strategy and structure the other is about design and interactions.”
Joe Sak
on 12 Mar 09They shouldn’t be different. It sounds like a bunch of titles made up to justify 6 employees when 3 will do. Or to justify not stretching beyond one’s skill-set because “hey, we hired a new guy for that”
Wolf
on 12 Mar 09All of this can be brought back to two titles, namely information architect and designer. An information architect defines the “what”. A designer defines the “how”.
nickd
on 12 Mar 09Information Architect: working on how information is structured on a web site, focusing on navigation and hierarchy.
Visual designer: Doesn’t this mean the same as graphic designer?
Usability specialist means something with a cognitive science angle, doing eye-tracking studies and actual usability testing. It deals more with the theory behind how users perceive interfaces rather than the actual creating of them.
1-4 are all the same, as far as I’m concerned. I’d add on “interface designer”, “user interface designer”, etc to that as well. I hate that my field has no actual term, and that certain people prefer “interaction design” or “interface design” or “experience design.” Isn’t the experience tacit in using an interface? Same with the interaction? Does any of that even matter?
nickd
on 12 Mar 09One more thing: “analyst” has much more of a theoretical/academic-ish/distanced connotation than “designer” or “architect” IMHO, and I don’t think anyone would call themselves an analyst if they were getting their hands dirty with the actual process of creation.
Paul Souders
on 12 Mar 09This has bugged me since I met my first “information architect” nigh on a decade ago. If you’re creating a website, isn’t your primary duty organizing (i.e “architecting”) information? Why would you delegate that task?
That’s like hiring a dog-walker. If you don’t enjoy (or have time for) walking the dog, you are seriously missing the point of dog-ownership.
Corollary: an organization that hires a “User Experience *” has just made an existential shrug. Why isn’t everyone thinking about the user all the time. “User requests are what computers are for!”
Or by “design” do you really mean “decoration?” This seems to be the usual expectation in the web/interaction universe. In automotive design or bridge design or software design, the “designer” is often the first person to touch the project. In many of the shops I know, the “designer” is frequently the last person to touch it. (“Here’s the wireframes. Now fire up Photoshop and add some sparkly!”)
And I say all this as someone who has held maybe half the titles on this list.
Jay Contonio
on 12 Mar 09What ever happened to just “web designer” who does all of the above?
These titles came along with “Web 2.0” so people could feel more important than they really are.
Justin Baum
on 12 Mar 09Here is how I think about it – Im obviously skewed by the web focused work that we do….
Information Architecture & Interaction Design = Disciplines/Skills I currently staff for. When people ask “what does a UX person actually DO?” I talk about the activities involved in those skills.
User Interface Design, Human Computer Interaction, Human factors, Usability Research = Older/roots disciplines & skills present in most people who say they are an IA, IxD or UX designer.
User Experience Designer = Umbrella term that encapsulates all the above skills. There is no clear definition everyone will ever agree on. Every person with the UX badge will have a different background and skill set.
Experience Design = (F’ it, here I go!) Considering on all levels the ways a person interacts with something, be it a room , a device, a brand, or taco truck. Lovely jargon like “touch point” and “orchestration” come to mind. I say this with a certain lack of conviction… does dropping the word user off the front of experience really zoom someone’s responsibilities out that far? Maybe, maybe not. Its all about context, and the job at hand. Re-designing an entire service’s “experience” like zipcar for example, is a lot different than doing a bit of prototyping for your friends startup.
At the company I work for we all try to remind ourselves that everyone, project managers, engineers, graphic designers and interaction designers are all responsible for the user experience of what we make. The silos and titles fade away when all of those people are in a room jamming and focused on making something awesome. We have got engineers that do IxD thinking and IxD people writing markup. Im sucker for cross disciplinary specialists. :) I have yet to meet a talented web person you can put in box (aka title or discipline).
I think the important piece is how to run an experience focused company or project… the titles and methodologies don’t matter, its the stuff you do to get from point A to B that makes it a win or fail.
zephyr
on 12 Mar 09“Interaction Design & Usability” is what I settled on for my business cards… couldn’t come up with an understandable, encompassing job title…
Rahul
on 12 Mar 09Unsurprisingly, my job title is actually “interaction engineer”, and I’ve seen interaction director, interaction strategist and visual analyst here and there too.
Brenton
on 13 Mar 09Jeff Veen (Adaptive Path founder) gave a speech on this a couple weeks ago. He even quoted you, Jason.
Lookup Startup2Startup on YouTube.
Fredrik Rubensson
on 13 Mar 09Where I work – most people say “usability person” because it is so hard to remember which one of the titles to use. And I call myself “system architect” but I really, really want to be just a developer…. I think this whole “architecture” metaphor is kinda wrong.
MT Heart
on 13 Mar 09“When technology delivers basics needs, user experience dominates”.
7 User Experience Lessons from the iPhone (Introducing UX)
matt
on 13 Mar 09@Paul: “That’s like hiring a dog-walker. If you don’t enjoy (or have time for) walking the dog, you are seriously missing the point of dog-ownership.”
I think you miss the people who work during the day but want their dogs to be able to get out for a stroll while their at work. I see no issues with hiring dog walkers in said case.
James
on 13 Mar 09When I start employing people, they won’t get job titles: if you’re doing a good job, you can define it yourself without being labelled.
Marc Robichaud
on 14 Mar 09Interaction Designers are West Coast and Information Architects are East Coast.
(User Experience Designers think they are the world.)
Rob Fay
on 16 Mar 09Typically, these kinds of jobs fall under the UX (user experience) or “experience design” umbrella. Under this umbrella falls a variety of disciplines and a variety of skill levels (between practitioner to strategist).
How about this metaphor: Someone in the culinary or food services industry may refer to him or herself as a “chef” but we know this is not an accurate term. It is an easy term to use when “talking to the outside world” but it does not fully articulate his or her skills. Is this person an executive chef, a sous chef, a station chef, a pastry chef, a pantry chef? Can this person chop, dice, boil, skin, fillet, etc.? One could even argue that a pastry chef works on an entirely different “product” (just as these roles may not be limited to web design only).
Now, do each of these roles have similar goals despite possessing different skills? Sure. Are some roles more skilled than another? Yes. Is one role more important than the other? It’s debatable – but some are considered more strategic while others are more grunt or practitioner-oriented. Can one person who wears one of these hats also wear another? Sure.
Generally speaking, information architects focus on information design as it plays out in structure, naming and navigation. Interaction designers focus on information design as it plays out in interactions and behaviors. Usability specialists focus on user testing to inform the design. Visual designers focus on the “eye candy” and generally take the low fidelity to high fidelity (i.e., generally have greater front-end development mojo). All of these roles employ a variety of techniques to understand the user to produce the best design that fits the need.
Any person can have any title at any given time and have skills to perform any one of these described roles. It’s the label we place on ourselves that is too limiting, IMHO. So, focus on the job description, not the title.
This discussion is closed.