Re: [IxDA Discuss] What is a subset of the other?
Don't know why, but Bruce Esrig wrote a reply that isn't showing up. Bruce wrote: "This answer is for the question posed at the beginning of the thread: how can I help my organization define these terms? The top priority is to be able to convey meaning. That's why defining the scope is so effective. A good definition will connect each term with one or more sets of specific items (responsibilities, behaviors, goals) that it may cover in particular contexts according to particular speakers. The recognized bundles of meaning can then be recognized as possible scopes. Once the scopes are defined, someone in the organization has to issue a ruling stating which terms stand for each scope. It's a brave try to make "user experience" stand for the entire experience of users and to make "customer experience" stand for the entire set of positions held by people who actually buy the product. It's a linguistic grand unification: notice how you can take the words in the noun phrase, read them, interpret them, and tell the story of how your interpretation is driven by the component words. It's just great. It makes it easy to talk and be understood. But user "user experience" isn't just a noun phrase standing around asking to be assigned its natural meaning. It's a marketing term for one or more designers carrying out one or more design disciplines. Even though many leading interaction designers have adopted it with delight and defined it as an umbrella term, the community that traces its lineage via usability also has its natural definition of what the term should mean, a definition that homes in on usability issues, which then can also be defined broadly or narrowly. Now I am noticing for the first time a third community, of IxDA list members for whom user experience has taken on the meaning that user interface design might have had before. That's natural if your perception of interaction design is formed from the most common application area where interaction design is known to happen: in digital user interfaces. So the meaning that you choose for the term may depend in part on what community you are trying to assert you belong to, or perhaps the opposite: you might choose a meaning based on the community you belong to. But you're better off choosing a meaning based on the community you need to talk with. If you're being asked to define it, and if you're really lucky, you can do water-cooler ethnography. It sounds as though your organization has already determined how to assign responsibilities to groups. If not, that's the first step. Then, you can ask what terms the people you work with assign to each of these sets of responsibilities, especially the people whose usage is likely to influence the way the organization talks about it. Make sure the key influencers either adopt the usage you want or tell you the usage that you're going to use, so that the terminology becomes stable inside your organization. That way, they'll know what to say when they want to fund the activity. If you already knew this, then the discussion should confirm your suspicions. Adopting terminology is a social process, and much though "the community" would like to answer your question, the participants on this list don't form a single unanimous community, and there are multiple definitions to point to. It's those definitions that you need to discuss internally and assign names to. If the right people are comfortable with the terms, everyone else will take their cue from them, or else the exercise, ending without consensus, will enable little subgroups of individuals to wink at each other, knowing that they share an interpretation. The key is to enable everyone to understand one another, whether or not they can all bring themselves to use the same language. Best wishes, Bruce" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=49125 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] What is a subset of the other?
So interesting. Living, nearly opposite definitions alive in the community. What say ye? Cheers, Liz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=49125 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] What is a subset of the other?
User Experience is a subset of Interaction Design: Interaction Design consists of several components including: - User Experience - Information Architecture - Usability Studies - Graphical User Interface - Web Analytics / Business Intelligence UX is the process by which usage behavioral patterns are identified, interpretted and applied in way that's highly beneficial for both the end user and the business. AaronW. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=49125 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] What is a subset of the other?
In my assessment of this situation in the world at large, User Experience (UX, or UXD) has become the umbrella term for a range of fields that consider and address various aspects of the user experience with products and services. All the fields of UX can be defined as operating on a spectrum of skills involving Understanding, Definition, and Communication. IxD is one of the design fields in the space of DEFINITION, being a sibling of Information Architecture and Industrial Design and yet other fields. I created a sundial model to illustrate this understanding of UX and also took it to the level of assessing the particular practices of the discipline of IxD that also lie on this spectrum of skills. See: http://ebacon.posterous.com/sundial-model-of-ux-and-ixd Along with the other materials proposed in this thread, perhaps this model can help inform your company's organization and understanding of the relationships between the larger whole & its constituent parts. Cheers, Liz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=49125 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] What is a subset of the other?
User experience is a fairly recent concept that seems to be used most frequently to describe the presentation layer of a digital media product. Many roles, some of which are overlapping depending on the team setting, contribute work products that impact the user experience: business strategy, marketing, merchandising, user experience strategy, user research, interaction design, information architecture, visual design, content strategy, site development, etc. A director or manager of user experience needs to have authority and budget to ensure quality of all these work stream and products, including interaction design. Interaction design can include work products, e.g. functional specifications, which in some team settings have implications outside of user experience. Lagniappe: Customer experience is broader than user experience. I would like to see user experience have dotted line reporting to customer experience, which covers customer touchpoints across all channels. Paul Bryan Usography ( http://www.usography.com ) Linked In: http://www.linkedin.com/in/uxexperts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=49125 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] What is a subset of the other?
Hi Sachin, FIRST OFF: Interaction design is part of the user experience. How can anyone debate that, everything we do is to better the user experience. From laying out a screen, to architecting the work flow, to recommending highlight of a button as you move over it, and what happens when you click that button, and much, much more is all part of the experience, If I may offer my humble opinion, I have contracted for many banks and large financial institutions, which seem to be the only in-house design, dev, and much much more organizations who have the deep pockets to afford ever imaginable department, title and role under the sun. I found that having that many layers and groups of potentially conflicting opinions will cause you to never deliver on time, under perform, and basically look bad. It will cause you the most pain, to the extent that it will drive you to quit your job one day. I don't know your companies political reasons for suggesting such an obserd break up of a naturally collaborative team makeup, but respectively, you are the expert, not the executives who probably read the latest blog about what a so called expert thinks is the best way to work. I agree with Ari but I would add for you to avoid over-complicating your team. Good luck. Rob... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=49125 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] What is a subset of the other?
I don't want to make your life harder, but here's an image from Nick Finck I've found to be helpful: http://www.flickr.com/photos/digitalweb/4197767981/ I would suggest making the next step of the debate one of defining the terms "interaction design" and "user experience." Going any further without definitions of the core purpose of a department will likely lead to many, many headaches. Good luck! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=49125 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] What is a subset of the other?
This is interesting topic. And the point of view adopted by your organization as a preferred one seems to define the shape of the organization. So this is not just an academic question to you. UX is a wider concept and involves things like content, aesthetics and such in addition to usability. I think UX design is about striving to generate desired impact to user%u2019s emotions and memory by various means. IxD concentrates on usability and how the system responds to user%u2019s actions. And it sure affects the user%u2019s experience. I think TIxD and UX design complement each other. They are more like sisters than mother and daughter. Avoid over-conceptualizing this. In your organization, subduing IxD to UX design might be as bad as subduing UX Design to IxD. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=49125 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
[IxDA Discuss] What is a subset of the other?
In my organization, there is a simmering debate that Interaction Design is not a subset of User Experience, where as people think that it's just the other way around. This has me a bit in a fix because I have been trying to tell some of our management that IxD is a subset of UX. The two images in reference are: http://userexperienceproject.blogspot.com/ and http://emids.com/subpages/offerings-eit-usability.html Or am I the confused one and some of the arguing personalities in my organization are correct. I hate to think so. We are in a debate because there is a growing need to start a IxD, UseX and Usability department(s) in our organization. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
