I agree that there is distinction and difference but as I posted in reply to Andrew – there is a big tent that we are all playing in AND we do draw from each of the disciplines in that tent and beyond.

As you know I strongly disagree.

Information Architects only organise information in a very few specialist cases. The normal role of an Information Architect is to design an interactive system.

Your view appears to be similar to some graphic designers who do interface interaction and feel that is experience design as opposed to others who see experience design more akin to the designing of an interactive system with functionality, flow, and information as the core and the visual design and front end code as delivery mechanisms.

Information Architects have become User Experience Designers (especially folks who have had experience of a wide range of tasks like coding and visual design) because they have had to work to pull all aspects of the user experience together across the user centered design spectrum. They have had to fight to break down barriers to ensure that things are user focused.

Often the role of Interactive Experience Design and Information Architecture ARE the same thing in the real world.

Dave, with all due respect I disagree strongly with the POV you present in this post. However, I also have to admit to being disappointed; you present no strong arguments here, only strong opinions. For example, you say “There is so much that separates IA/IxD/Usability/HCI/Graphic Design/Industrial Design, etc.”, but you don’t mention anything that does. (I suspect this is because it would be as easy to draw up a similar list of things that join the disciplines.)

As I see it, not only _can_ the context of the conversation be generalized, but there is a great deal of value in doing so. These disciplines have a great deal in common; you only need look at the number of IA-related questions come up in the IxDA mailing list, or the obvious overlap that exists between the communities of practitioners that attend IxD and IA events to realize that there is a “there” there. (Many of us, myself included, wear IxD hats and IA hats often in our day-to-day work. My IA work has been informed and enriched by my IxD work, and vice-versa.) Architects and civil engineers don’t have much in common, but architects and urban planners do. I suspect the differences between these disciplines are closer to the latter. But that is my opinion, as these are yours.

You wrote, “Interaction Design is NOT Information Architecture.” You are right, but I don’t think anybody has suggested otherwise. The fact that you resort to framing the argument using this (tired) straw man makes me think that this end of the conversation has played itself out. I’d be keen on seeing a better crafted argument in favor of drawing up hard lines around these disciplines. As it stands, this post presents religion, not argument. I remain unconvinced.

I can understand the reticence to use the term “user experience”. Like all labels for abstract and shifting concepts it has its weak points. It may change, but right now I can’t think of a better label.

I also think it can be extended beyond the web/software context and into all manner of interactions between human beings and the artifacts we create.

I think the difference, to me and in my experience, is that you can design software without user-centered (or people-centered or human-centered or whatever) considerations. it’s been done for a long, long time.

The reason it’s nice to use the term “experience design” and to cast a wide net for skills is that, on most projects, you get only one such person, whatever it is. So that’s why the T-model approach to skills span is nice….someone who has a breadth of skills but maybe is really focused on IxD…but you still need that person to do some usability engineering, or perhaps come up with a menu system for the software, or apply an opinion on the visual design of the frame of the software.

I’m thinking too of Terry Winograd’s “Bringing Design to Software” (1996). Amazingly, 13 years later, it still stands up a s quite valid and appropriate book. Seems to apply to this discussion, too.

This all seems like a pissing contest that does not have a value, unless we are all trying to become “self actualized” as professionals. Frankly, I agree with both you and Andrew.

Why does a discussion of similarities or differences need to be mutually exclusive? I have strengths and weaknesses as a professional in this “UX” landscape. If I don’t have one tool, I either get it or ask someone who has that skill for help.

Perhaps the real discussion should focus on needed skills for the profession and knowing when it’s worthwhile to acquire them vs. asking someone for help.

What we call ourselves isn’t important. If you look at our DNA, it might be similar to how Todd Zaki Warfel screates personas with “DNA” – http://toddwarfel.com/archives/persona-templates-v2/ That is, if you lay out all of the UX skills that a person can possess, we would all register at varying levels for each skill, regardless of what we call ourselves.

UX is a multi-disciplinary profession and therefore no one name will fit or should fit. UX should be seen as a group of people from different professions who are involved in what happens when human beings meet technology. I am from the UK and I have worked in usability for 20 years (started on green screen stuff); I have two professional accreditations as a chartered psychologist and as a Registered Ergonomist. My focus is in the people aspects.

I don’t code, I have never done wireframes or designed icons, for me those are software engineer tasks. But I do know a huge amount about usability, testing, and user behaviour from the individual to the organisational and social/cultural. I know nothing about branding, in the UK there are chartered members of the institute of marketing who do that stuff. I have worked with users, run usability tests, done card sorts, project managed user centred design processes and helped develop international standards in user centred design. I have never done personnas or the user journey but I have done user requirements (ethnography) and user observation, I have defined users’ characteristics. I have never done the information architecture but I have done task analysis and applied psychology and GUI standards to interface design.

The problem with our area is too many people are running around saying they can do all these things and web agencies ask for people who can do all these things. Most are amateurs who have been to a few workshops, read a few books and can code a bit. Very few are qualified professionals in a specific area e.g. applied psychology, marketing, software engineering etc. The result is that they are re-inventing methods, standards and processes

I have had these people stare at me in disbelief with comments such as “you can’t have been in usability that long it all started with the web 2002”, “if you can’t do wireframes you are not a user centred designer” (oops I wrote the standards); “ergonomics is soooo last century”; ” you are just NOT in our space, usability is about facebook, twitter and branding – that’s the user journey”. “GUI standards do not apply to web, they are too old fashioned”. Again oops with rich internet applications GUI standards are very applicable. Also I have never worked in a web agency and I am not young, sexy or hip person who splashes my personal life on facebook.

So as a middle-aged unemployed usability and user centred design expert who has faced these misconceptions, prejudices and requirements for the impossible individual (must do everything from user requirements, coding to usability testing and through life support with some branding thrown in) I do not believe in the UX Tribe.

I DO believe in the need for highly qualified individuals from a range of disciplines working together. So fewer amateurs and more professionals are needed with a real understanding of the long history of usability (BW -before web) and the complexity that user centred design is and should be.