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One of the questions which people often ask me is “What do I really do for a living?”. I find it quite difficult to explain my job description in lay man terms.
Me: “I am an Usability Analyst”
They: Usable what?
Me: I am an User Experience Design Analyst
They: mmmhm… what is that?
Me: I am an Application Architect
They: What platform?
Me: I design the User Interaction of a web or mobile applications.
They: Ah! so you are a web designer.
When its any other software profession, its sort of easy to make people understand it. You just say “I am a software engineer” and there ends the conversation. But in my case its not easy for people outside my domain to comprehend the nature of work I do. Even guys in the software industry can’t get it. So I finally end up telling them the big story and the layman version of it gets the attention and shuts up the remaining conversation. It goes like this.
Version 1: I am like an architect for a building. I tell them which component goes where and explain why that component is most usable in that particular position. How humans interact with that component. What are the specifications of the layout. How is the layout presented and so on. From there, the engineers and masons take up the design and start building the house. So I do the same for any portal, web application or mobile application.
Version 2: I am like a designer for a car. I tell the size, dimensions, color and location of each spare part that goes into the car hood or the car interior. I also tell them what the car must look like from the outside. To do this, I speak to the prospective customers and get their expectation. Then I design a model car. I test it with the customers to see if that meets their expectations. Then I design the final car and give it to the production guys to manufacture it. After the car is released into the market I again speak to the customer and get their feedback to make improvements in the next version of the car.
People like the story and the moment the realize the importance of my role the conversation ends there. I am happy that I have confused one more person along the way.
But that aside, I have come across a few people who are in my line of work, who claim that they are User Experience Designers. Superficially the job title could get the pass, but if you look into the meaning, it would say that the person actually designs the experience of other users. I strongly believe that not only impossible but also illogical. Each user is unique and their experience is dependent on various factors like culture, perception, exposure, experience, age, ability, IQ, etc. How can one person design and govern the experience of zillions of users out there.
What we actually do is, to identify the common behavioral patterns and to design an application that would couple along with the real life situation and aid a better user experience. So we don’t actually design the user experience, but we design products and application that gives the best user experience possible and that is what I do for a living.
It is the special field that outsiders will not fully understand its essential.
Yup, but it sort of surprises me everytime when people in the software industry dont understand it. That will never cease to surprise me :)
Just tell them to watch this video :)