The UX field is booming. It seems like the number of user experience practitioners has doubled in the last year — from newbies who’ve just entered the workforce, to mid-career changes, to folks who’ve been doing this all along but finally found out what to call themselves.

It’s incredibly reassuring to finally see a long overdue interest in user experience practice; after all, that’s what many of us have spent our careers fighting for. I started this blog to give greater insight into how we think, how we work, and how we benefit customers and companies alike. I consider myself lucky to be among many professionals who speak at conferences around the world in an effort to bring UX into the mainstream. And it’s working!

There’s just one problem: not everyone calling themselves a user experience designer is actually a user experience designer. Unfortunately the designation isn’t as clear cut as a doctor or a lawyer. Most professions are certified and regulated, so you don’t see impostor behavior often — and when you do, it’s typically in the form of a news article about someone going to jail for fraud. Perhaps more analogously, even those in non-regulated occupations like writers and programmers would have a hard time passing themselves off as such without actually writing or actually programming.

But how does a user experience designer demonstrate their user experience designing? I’m not talking about quality or level of expertise here; I’m merely referring to the veracity, the legitimacy of the title itself.

Regardless of what they choose to call themselves, how can you identify someone who isn’t actually practicing UX at all, who’s only hitching their wagon to a rising star?

You’re not a user experience designer if…

1. You don’t talk to users. If you design entirely based on intuition without ever gathering intel from a single human being who might at some point in their life come into contact with your business, I’m sorry, but you just aren’t a user experience designer.
2. You can’t identify your target audience. If asked who your site is intended for and you say anyone and everyone, you are wrong. If a product is designed for everyone, it works for no one. A user experience designer would know that and narrow the target.
3. You don’t define the problem before trying to solve it. If your boss tells you what to build and you don’t start the project by first determining why — the specific pain point that people are currently experiencing that your product aims to eliminate — you’re a lackey, not a user advocate. Nine times out of ten, understanding the problem changes the solution dramatically.
4. You can’t articulate your users’ goals. Maybe you kinda get the problem people are having, but unless you can communicate (in your own words) the objectives your target users are trying to accomplish both in their lives and their work, how can you craft a solution that will truly support their efforts?
5. You design in a vacuum. No user experience designer works alone, so if you are, you aren’t one. Even a UX team of one relies on stakeholders, visual designers, developers, marketers, the guy in the next cubicle , etc. for feedback. A user experience designer knows the product isn’t meant for them, and always tests its effectiveness with other people.
6. You make design decisions based on your personal preferences. If your coworker or client asks you, “Why did you choose to use checkboxes instead of radio buttons?” and your answer is, “Because I’ve always liked checkboxes better,” please dear God don’t call yourself a user experience designer.
7. You don’t consider the business objectives. Surprise! If all you want to do is protect the consumer, join the ACLU. A true user experience designer understands their company’s goals just as deeply as they understand their constituents. That allows you to determine which of the constituency’s needs should be addressed by the product, and make a case to the powers that be how doing so will positively impact the business in the long run.
8. You don’t use UX methods. User interviews, usability tests, personas, scenarios, card sorts, affinity diagrams, concept models, sketches, flow diagrams, sitemaps, wireframes, prototypes, web analytics, A/B tests, the list goes on and on. If you don’t have a systematic approach for articulating what you learn about your users to others on your team, or even a loose process to iterate on your ideas for what they’ll experience, you might be trying but you aren’t a user experience designer.
9. You don’t design for conditions and edge cases. If you map out best-case scenarios and how-we-want-it user flows, but don’t take the time to craft branches and escape hatches for alternative needs, user errors, system errors and general curiosity, you don’t understand people very well and you’re not a user experience designer.
10. You only think about the interface. If you’re focused exclusively on what the user sees and does on your website/mobile app/desktop app/kiosk/whatever, but never plan for how they’ll get there, what they’ll do when they leave, how they’ll come back, and most of all, how they’ll feel about it a week later, you’re a user interface designer, not a user experience designer. There’s a big difference.

I might sound like I’m contradicting myself

The above slide is from my presentation DIY UX: Give Your Users an Upgrade Without Calling in a Pro. So yes, I am partially to blame for this trend. But I didn’t really mean for people to start putting the title on their business cards and anointing themselves User Experience Designers without actually putting in the hard work.

The point of that slide in particular is to get people to realize that no matter what their role is, if they touch the outcome of the product in any way, shape, or form (as a designer, developer, copywriter, business analyst or marketer), they are ultimately affecting the user’s experience with the product, and as such, must take responsibility for doing right by them. This means learning who they are, listening to their needs, understanding their behaviors, and getting their feedback each step of the way. Otherwise you have no right to call yourself, or let your boss call you, what you’re not.

If you have the title of User Experience Designer and you want to do these things but aren’t being allowed to, don’t stand for it. Send the culprit this post if you’re feeling ballsy. Or let me know how I can help, either in the comments or via email. It’s one thing to claim to be something that you’re not just to be in vogue and make yourself more appealing to prospective employers; it’s another thing altogether to try doing the job and having roadblocks put in your way. What user experience designers do is honorable, compassionate, and valuable to businesses’ bottom line. When it’s actually practiced.

• Follow-up to “You’re not a user experience designer if…”
• UI13: Dana Chisnell’s “Usability Testing in the Wild”
• See you at An Event Apart Chicago
• A Hippocratic Oath for User Experience Designers
• Whit Hour – Week 16

Internet Week 2010, starting today and ending on Sunday, is a wide array of events all around NYC raising the profile of our ever-growing tech industry.

I’ve been generally underwhelmed by the daytime offerings, but will be out and about each night.

Where you can find me (and if you see me, say hello!):

Monday, June 7

Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh’s DELIVERING HAPPINESS book launch
The Hudson Hotel

Tuesday, June 8

NY Tech Meetup
NYU Skirball Center

Wednesday, June 9

TechSet
The Social Bar

Rackspace Revolution Party
230 Fifth

Thursday, June 10

Obliterati
Sweet & Vicious

Friday, June 11

Next New Networks’ Summer Friday Drinkup
The Frying Pan

Anything else?

If there are other events you think I should be attending, please let me know in the comments! I’m not enough of a socialite to know what’s what.

P.S. You can always see where I’m hanging out by checking out my Google Calendar under SIGHTINGS in the right sidebar of this blog.

• Whitney and Internet Week New York
• Internet Week NY Wrap-Up (in photos)
• City Trails: May 18-22
• Find me at Web 2.0 Expo NY this week
• City Trails: May 25-29

While at STC Summit in Dallas a month ago, Tom Johnson, a technical writer for the LDS Church in Salt Lake City, asked if he could interview me for his blog I’d Rather Be Writing.

Photo taken by Tony Chung

In this videocast, I talk with Whitney Hess at the STC Summit in Dallas about her perspective on old guard versus new guard mentality, or in other words, the traditional offline, change-resistant mentality versus the web-savvy, social-media-saturated mindset more common with the younger generation. Whitney Hess is a user experience design consultant from New York City who was invited to speak at the Summit this year.

I didn’t know ahead of time what he would be asking me, and okay, I was already a couple beers in. But I greatly enjoyed his questions and, rewatching the video now, I’m remarkably proud of my responses. Watch the full interview below:

Many thanks for Tom for his kindness and for allowing me to finally share these ideas that have been percolating for some time.

• Reaching outside the UX tribe at STC’s Technical Communication Summit
• The plain numbers about women in tech – The Startups
• Inspiration and Aspiration
• Holy crap…I gave the closing plenary at IA Summit 2010
• I’m running for the 2008 Information Architecture Institute board of directors

The very first issue of the Journal of Information Architecture was published yesterday, after much dedication and tirelessness from contributors around the world.

The Journal of Information Architecture is a peer-reviewed scholarly journal. Its aim is to facilitate the systematic development of the scientific body of knowledge in the field of information architecture.

The long term goal of the journal is to serve as a forum for new research and sharing of good ideas and case studies that are useful to the field’s researchers, practitioners, students, and all other interested parties.

Table of Contents for Volume 1, Issue 1:

• Dorte Madsen
  Editorial: Shall We Dance?
• Gianluca Brugnoli
  Connecting the Dots of User Experience
• Helena Francke
  Towards an Architectural Document Analysis
• Andrew Hinton
  The Machineries of Context
• James Kalbach
  On Uncertainty in Information Architecture

The Journal of Information Architecture is an independent initiative of the Research & Education Group in IA (REG-iA), and is sponsored by the Copenhagen Business School and Information Architecture Institute (IAI).

If you’re interested in submitting a paper for Volume 1, Issue 2 to be published in the Fall, find out the details here. The deadline is August 1, 2009.

Congratulations all to a job well done. As time goes on, I’m sure this will prove to be a worthy addition to the body of knowledge on information architecture. It’s been a long time coming!

• Congrats to the new IAI board members
• Whit Hour – Week 19
• I was asked to join the IAI Board of Advisors
• So you wanna be a user experience designer — Step 1: Resources
• I have joined the UXnet board of directors

Tomorrow afternoon I’m heading down to Miami, FL to attend IA Summit 2008, a conference for information architects. While I don’t strictly call myself an IA, information architecture is a very important part of what I do as a user experience designer. Many of the most influential leaders in our field will be speaking or attending, and I’m thrilled that this year (their 9th annual!) I’ll finally be able to be a part of it.

All day Friday I’ll be attending the pre-conference workshop titled, “IAI Presents: Becoming a leader – from IA to business and beyond” hosted by quite a diverse and impressive group: Christopher Fahey, Margaret Hanley, Harry Max, Karen McGrane, Josh Rubin, and Jorge Arango. Check out the rest of my schedule on CrowdVine.

I’ll be in town until Tuesday morning. If you want to connect you can email me, direct message me on Twitter, or leave a comment on CrowdVine. In other words, I’m easily accessible ;) I hope to see you there!

• CrowdVine Schedule problems
• I’m Speaking at Pittsburgh Web Design Day
• Find me at Web 2.0 Expo NY this week
• I’ll be speaking at An Event Apart 2009
• I was asked to join the IAI Board of Advisors

I’m talking about the verbs, not the nouns. To design. To architect. To engineer. These words are often conflated — a common source of despair for those of us in the related fields, misunderstood and misidentified.

This issue has been tackled by many people far more seasoned and insightful than me. But if I may be so bold as to offer up my distinction…

Design, v.

to plan the use of

Architect, v.

to plan the structure of

Engineer, v.

to plan the construction of

Experience designers plan the use of a system or service. Fashion designers plan the use of clothes and accessories. Interior designers plan the use of living or working space. Industrial designers plan the use of three-dimensional products.

Architects plan the structure of buildings. Information architects plan the structure of content. Landscape architects plan the structure of natural environments. Enterprise architects plan the structure of an organization.

Civil engineers plan the construction of public works. Environmental engineers plan the construction of sustainable processes and public systems. Electrical engineers plan the construction of electrically powered systems. Software engineers plan the construction of computer programs.

In order to go from ideation to creation, all three activities must occur concurrently. It may be that in some organizations one person is responsible for multiple roles — for instance, an interaction designer on a website project who both defines the structure of pages in the site as well as each page’s layout and functionality. The former is architecture, the latter is design.

What makes everything all the more confusing is when the finished product, system or environment is called “the design.” A beautiful dress, a bottle opener, the case of the MacBook Air, the iPhone, the NYC subway. When things work well, are pleasurable to experience and improve quality of life, they are praised for their high design. But we often neglect to recognize the necessary insight and craft of the architecture and engineering that makes it all a reality.

When the argument comes back around to “interaction design” versus “user experience” versus “information architecture” versus “usability engineering,” as it is wont to do in our industry, let’s remember that they are all just facets of the total work necessary to achieve our common goals: making life just a little bit easier, a little bit more productive, and a lot more fun.

• The user experience of a staircase
• Photo of the day: Warning: Movie longer than flight
• Designing for Startups in Smashing Magazine
• I wish I knew how to quit you
• MFA in Interaction Design at the School of Visual Arts in NYC