CHI 2005 | Development Consortium

April 2-7 | Portland, Oregon, USA

Creating a UX Profession
Nigel Bevan
Serco Usability Services
22 Hand Court
London, WC1V 6JF, UKnbevan@usability.serco.com
related and overlapping professions, and at the same time
reap the benefits of a strong multidisciplinary profession?

ABSTRACT

Current aspirations to coordinate the UX community should
be complemented by a coordinated series of professional
initiatives to raise the status of the UX profession so that it
can take its rightful role at the heart of the development
process.

One challenge for the Development Consortium is how
professional organizations can coordinate their activities ina way that better supports the needs of their members.
But the organizations also need to collaborate to have amore effective voice in raising the status and visibility of
the UX professions. This paper considers the challenge of
how one could move towards a strong internationallyrespected professional organization that takes the lead in
representing and championing the role of UX professions sothat they can take their rightful role at the heart of thedevelopment process.

Author Keywords

UX, usability, profession, international.
ACM Classification Keywords

K.7.2. The computer profession: organizations.
INTRODUCTION

Despite compelling evidence of the benefits of employinguser centered design methods to produce more usable
products [2] most development activity still does not use
these methods consistently, with the result that mostinteractive systems are unnecessarily difficult to use.
Surveys have shown that a staggeringly high percentage ofbig development projects fail or are only partiallysuccessful [6]. In a study of 15 large commercial sites, users
could only find information 42% of the time even though
they were taken to the correct home page before they weregiven the test tasks [5].

This would increase the motivation and incentive for theconstituent professional organizations and their members tocollaborate through UXnet to achieve common goals.
A PLAN OF ACTION

A starting point would be to compile a comprehensive auditof the current status and role of UX in every form ofprofessional activity, to identify what would need to bedone to give UX the same status as established professions.
Each discrepancy could be analyzed to identify short- andlonger-term initiatives that would help close the gap andgain greater respect and influence for UX professionals.

Relatively simple user-centered techniques could provide
major benefits, but they are most often used too little andtoo late.

There are two complementary areas of activity:• to formalize user centered knowledge and techniques toprovide a firm foundation for the UX profession, andA series of specialist professions have emerged to help
meet the demand for user centered contributions todevelopment: ergonomics, human factors, usability,
information architecture, information design, interaction
design, user experience, etc. Although originating fromdifferent professional traditions, they all share a common
goal of helping produce design solutions that meet real userneeds.

• to incorporate user experience as an integral part of otherrelevant professional activities.
FORMALIZING USER EXPERIENCE KNOWLEDGE

There is currently little consensus on what constitutes
established good professional practice in UX. Educatorsand practitioners are mainly dependent on personal
experience and their selection of textbooks. One of thereasons that the initiative for professional accreditation ofusability failed [1] was because of the perception thatusability is still more an art than a science. The UPA is
now sponsoring the first steps towards a usability body ofknowledge and curriculum [8] to help fill this gap.

This presents a challenge: how can we both support theneeds of individuals who identify with multiple closelyCopyright is held by the author/owner(s).
CHI 2005, April 2–7, 2005, Portland, Oregon, USA.
ACM 1-59593-002-7/05/0004.

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CHI 2005 | Development Consortium

April 2-7 | Portland, Oregon, USA

There has been more success in the area of international
standards in the field of usability, with a series of respected
standards (ISO 9241, ISO 13407, ISO 18529 etc.).

volunteers to work on a range of initiatives. This should
build on the initiatives of existing UX professional bodies.
It would primarily be a voluntary professional activity, but
professional initiatives are notoriously difficult to manage.
Similar initiatives in the past [e.g. 7] have failed to makeprogress for the lack of a supporting infrastructure. Key
success factors are:But ironically documenting this knowledge in the form ofexpensive international standards has limited its distribution
and influence in an age when information is expected to be
freely available over the Internet. The established basic
principles in the standards need to be extended andtranslated into more practical methods and techniques.

• Each initiative should be led by a committed enthusiast,with support from a small team of volunteers.
• A loose management framework could be recommended
to sustain progress: for example an agreed work plan withdeliverables and monthly telephone meetings to maintainprogress.

INTEGRATION WITH OTHER PROFESSIONSThe existing standards and principles together with an
emerging body of knowledge will help strengthen some ofthe existing UX professions, but are largely inaccessible tomore traditional design and development professions thathave different priorities, terminologies and professionalframeworks. This presents the biggest challenge: tointegrate UX knowledge, methods and techniques at alllevels in fields such as computer science, software and web
development, design, quality, procurement etc. This will
involve a lengthy process of revising and extending existing
textbooks, syllabuses, training courses, codes of practice,standards, etc.

• An infrastructure to monitor project progress and ensurethat another member of the team steps in if the leader isunable to devote enough time and energy.
UXnet could initially motivate and coordinate a series of
initiatives sponsored by its constituent organizations, unlessand until it has the resources to launch and manage its own
projects.
WORKING INTERNATIONALLY

There has been a start in some areas: for example the newISO 15288 standard for systems development now
incorporates user centered activities (unlike its predecessor
for software development). This is not an easy area to workin: it needs multi-skilled individuals who are as confident
and respected in the traditional domain as they are in theUX field.

It is important to harness the enthusiasm of the rapidly
growing international UX community. The benefits wouldbe:

DEMAND A GOOD USER EXPERIENCE• To invigorate the work with the insights from different
national cultures.

• To significantly increase the number of available
volunteers.
• Have parallel work each addressing a different nationalaudience, but sharing experience.

Traditional professions need pull as well as push: bothcustomers and users need to demand easier to use systems
that provide a user experience better matched to their needs.
Fortunately ease-of-use is now widely recognized as adesirable characteristic of systems intended for use by thegeneral public. Curiously this enlightenment has notreached many of those responsible for developing big
professional systems. Despite coherent accounts of the
major economic benefits [e.g. 4] entrenched IT departments
continue to turn out systems that have had little effective
user involvement.

REFERENCES

1. Bevan, N. (2003) Accreditation of usability
professionals. HCI International 2003, p429-433.
Lawrence Erlbaum.
2. Bevan, N. (in press) Cost benefits framework. In Bias,
R. (ed): Cost-Justifying Usability, 2nd edition. Elsevier.
3. Bevan, N., Claridge, N., Maguire, M., Athousaki, M.
(2002) Specifying and evaluating usability requirements using the Common Industry Format. Proc. of IFIP
17th World Computer Congress, p133-148. Kluwer.

The UPA is in the process of organizing a World Usability
Day as one contribution to raising awareness.

4. Landauer, T.K. (1996) The trouble with computers. MITPress.

Another important target is to provide major commercial,military and government purchasing organizations with apractical way to include user experience requirements intheir tenders: developers will only provide what thecustomer asks for. The Common Industry Format is one
small step in this direction [3].

5. Spool, J et al (1998) Web site usability. MorganKaufmann
6. Standish Group (2004) CHAOS Report.

MOBILIZING SUPPORT

7. Tscheligli, M., Giller, V., Fröhlich, P. (2003) AEuropean Usability Forum collaborating on strategic
initiatives. HCI International 2003. Lawrence Erlbaum.

The emerging UXnet organization could provide theinfrastructure, coordination and vision to mobilize

8. UPA (2004) Body of knowledge.
www.upassoc.org/upa_projects/body_of_knowledge/

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