I like Eric Reiss’s “talented generalist” approach to defining UX Designers as much as the next guy. As a UX Designer it’s easy to agree with, “Hey, we are awesome at everything, OWN IT.” But, really, that just simply isn’t the whole truth, and it definitely isn’t good enough. It’s an over simplistic high-minded generalization of the top-tier of a loosely defined and constantly changing umbrella. Ok, that was over-the-top and a bit of a mouthful, but maybe I have your attention. I’m not here to tell you to remove “jack-of-all-trades” from your business cards (do people still use those?!), or to tell you to stop thinking so highly of yourself. That’s certainly not my place. But jack-of-all-trades is a constant theme amongst the UX community, and as much as it may be true for many, we’re hurting ourselves more than everyone is willing to admit. It’s wishful thinking on my part, thinking that this post could influence anything. But we need to stop trying to force UX Design into what we want it to be. And start focusing on what UX Design actually is. It’s easy to say we are highly skilled in everything; it’s also easy to write an article…

More often than not, one person is forced to wear multiple design hats. There’s generally not an unlimited supply of money(sad face). But as much as this may be common practice, I think it’s important for the industry to have clear lines between roles. As of right now, UX Design is still poorly defined. People understand the general responsibilities, mostly, and underlying requirements. But ask someone the difference between Interaction design and UX Design. I’d love to hear their answer. Or how about where UX design starts and UI Development stops. More and more of these lines are being blurred. I have no problem wearing multiple hats. But I think not being able to pull UX design away from the pieces that make it up is hurting both the designers as well as the companies hiring them. To start off a series of posts attempting to clarify core responsibilities as well as generally where UX Design falls into the mix. I think it’s as appropriate of a time as any to look at what a UX Designer is not… A UX Designer is NOT an Information Architect. Often, especially when an information heavy website is in question, IA and UX…

I guess this could be considered a statement of intent. There are enough blogs about user experience that I feel an explanation for why I think this could be useful is in order. This site is targeted at UX in regard to digital products and services. I have no plans of coming home each day to vent about my office chair, or some new coffee machine. My goal here is to share my insights and opinions. I have been a UX consultant for the last couple years on top of my full-time job as a web developer. Before that I worked for years as a web designer, as well as a professional QA tester.. Leading functional, performance, and usability testing for a series of sites and web applications. I’ve been heavily involved in graphic design, information architecture, and content strategy among many other things. UX is definitely a passion of mine. It’s been on my mind 24/7 for quite some time, after a decade of thinking about the end-users interactions, its become a pretty natural process. My inspiration to start this site has come from two places: the passion for UX that I listed above, as well as having strong…