Maximizing UX via roles devoid of UX: My Career Anti-pattern

Not everyone who studies/reads/graduates with a degree in user experience (UX) or a “related discipline” will practice in their daily jobs. This isn’t a judgement or an opinion, but a inconvenient truth that I am not immune to. In the past, I’ve blogged about occasional conflicts of interest between the few that promote the innate value of UX and the many that seek mastery of UX. Specifically, I cannot understand why passion for UX is met with high educational  costs, small (but growing) pools of UX job opportunities, and an absence of widely accepted/certified/utilized UX proficiency standards.

While few have advocated mixing UX design skills with coding/programming (which I completely agree with…fyi), I still believe that UX roles should bot be explicit roles, but implicit skills included in standard project roles to have an impact even remotely proportional to UX’s purported importance. UX skills should be a job skill requirement embedded within every role in every phase of the project life cycle. With this theory in mind, I’d like to announce that I’m switching my strategy and taking a more covert approach toward accomplishing my desires to advance UX…

I plan to dedicate my remaining energies toward a digital technology oriented business role(s) to bring an awareness, respect, and appreciation of UX to oft “UX-less” areas within established companies. Some will think this makes sense and some will not, but my motivations are due to the incompatibilities listed above. While UX schools are far and few between, business schools are plentiful and some employers may even cover the costs of school/conferences/training. Furthermore, there are more jobs in the field of business in general than UX and most companies are likely to recognize an MBA from an AACSB accredited institution (i.e. accepted/certified/utilized standard) versus a UX or HCI degree/certificate whose recognition is somewhat limited to Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, University of Washington, or MIT.

What role will UX serve in my future business role? Simply put, I’ll ensure that UX becomes a permanent part of the project cycle and I’ll remove the bureaucracies that cause UX practitioners to “sell their discipline’s value” more than they practice. Much credit is due to John Maeda for being the inspiration behind my alternate approach. After reading Laws of Simplicity, I conceded that Maeda must have thought the same thing seeing that he added an MBA from Arizona State University to an impressive technology and design background. The combination of skills likely played a part in his selection as president @ RISD and opened the door for his methodologies to be implemented.

I may sound like a politician, but I’m willing to bet my career and my paternal fiscal obligations that my commitment to the project lifecycle preservation of UX will make a huge financial impact on consumer facing AND an internal/enterprise projects.

For those that will inevitably criticize this post for one reason or another, the bottom line is I’m commencing my own, personal, UX anti-pattern career. As I stated, I recognize and acknowledge the possibility that I may not be able to practice UX using the criteria that some have chosen to define. However, I’m attempting a different tactic that requires courage and a humility that allows me to step aside to give others the opportunity to practice, even if it means I’m not one of them. I’m sure I’m not the first I’m willing to block downfield as long as I know that there are swift and innovative UX practitioners behind me willing to carry the football.