As I explained in my previous post, user experience design is a multidisciplinary activity which includes psychology, user research, information architecture, interaction design, graphic design and a host of other disciplines. Due to the complexity of the field a user experience team will typically be made up of individuals with a range of different specialisms.
As somebody who has publically stated that they "don't care about user experience" and is fed up of "defining the dammed thing" I find myself being drawn into discussions about the term far more often than I'd like.
Like many geeks in the UK, the Tower Bridge Twitter account was one of the first Twitter Mashups I'd seen. It was also the point where I realised that Twitter was more than just a simple communication tool; it was a powerful and scriptable platform.
One of the most common things I'm asked is how people can break into the field of user experience design. I'd love to be able to give a simple answer like studying a particular course at University or starting as a UX apprentice and working your way up a series of clearly defined roles, but sadly that's not the case...
There's an interesting debate happening in the world of mobile design at the moment. In one camp we have the "nativists" who believe that the best mobile experiences are tailored to a particular device. These are the people focused on creating platform specific mobile apps and mobile websites. Then we have the "universalists" who believe in the "one web", a place where all content and services can be delivered to multiple devices through the same URL.
A few months ago I tweeted that we no longer needed to sell User Experience and our job was now to focus on delivering good user experiences. A few people asked me to expand on my thinking, so this quick post is in reference to that.