I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what role is missing from many web design agencies and studio. I’ve also been thinking a lot about what my perfect role might be, as a next career move.
It just so happens that there are a lot of similarities in the two.
My perfect role would be entitled User Experience Strategist. Or User Experience Director. Or something similarly titled. If you wanted to describe such a role, and the person required, it would include some of the following:
- Helps to define what the best internet prescence is for a brand, across all digital / mobile touch points.
- Translates a client business objectives into actual functional requirements – ultimately to deliver the best possible user experience.
- Documents website/mobile functionality, using UX deliverables like information architecture, user flows, wireframes (and sketches), functional specs and prototypes.
- Plays the user-advocate role in any project, an promotes user-centred design throughout the organization.
- Contributes as client facing lead on user experience strategy.
- Not a graphic designer per se, but with a love for (and strong understanding of) interface design and development.
- Understands the commercial reality, has project profitability objectives, and uses UX deliverables to manage project scope. Bases success on measurable results, including conversions and other website analytics.
- Working with creative and technology team members, to translate brand expression onto a digital platforms.
- Keeps on top of what interesting things other top-level agencies and design shops and startups are doing in the interactive space.
- Spends his/her waking hours trowling the web, experiencing great user experiences first-hand.
But that all sounds a bit like a job description. So let me summarise with a few online quotes I found, that describe it in ways that a job description can’t:
- “… makes stuff easy and pleasurable to use.”
- “..where timeframes tend to be condensed and RAD is the order of the day.”
- “To really drive a project to successful conclusion is it essential you understand the business, the product nuts and bolts, and be astute technically.”
- “Develop an ear for the little questions that all of your team members constantly ask, but no one ever seems to know how to answer.
For example:
Developer: Why are we building this feature? Who’s going to use it?
Project Manager: I don’t know which fields should go on the page, so just add all of them. Maybe someone will need them all.
Business Sponsor: Everyone knows that links ALWAYS have to be underlined.
Marketing: Can we change the font to 8 pixels? I need more room for ads.
Architect: Flex is the only way to implement that design.
User research can help answer all of the above. You just have to be interested enough to distill each into the appropriate experiment (study, card sort, survey, review, etc) and deliver results to the right people at the right time, in a digestible format.”
(source: this post)
My conclusion? I honestly believe that this is a really important role that should exist in more places than it does at the moment.
Someone who can work between the creatives and the techs. Someone that can help move an offline brand into an online one. Someone who understands a great online user experience someone is being a passionate web user themselves.
Personally, this is where I want my career to head. This is what I’m passionate about. That said – if you think you need someone like this, maybe you should give me a call. I might be able to help out.
