Why I am an IA

Adam Greenfield held the opening keynote at the fourth European IA summit in Amsterdam, 2008. The headline was “Why I’m not an IA”. He said some interesting things and suggested that our future job description become much broader, with a stronger emphasise on “experience”. I could certainly follow his reasoning, and until quite recently, I would have had no problems calling myself a “user experience designer”. But then I met Peter Bogaards…

During the first meeting of the European IA network initiative, Peter and I had a discussion about using the term UX in our job titles to explain what we were doing. I argued that UX and IA are two sides of the same coin and it would be devastating to our yet small and vulnerable community, if we caused a split between the two, such as we have seen in the US. But after listening to Peters arguments, I realised that IA is what we all practice to some extent, in order to create, sometimes deliberately, a user experience.

Realising that I actually worked as an IA, and could present myself as such, suddenly solved another problem, I’ve had for years but never noticed before; people around me didn’t really understand what I did. Now, I didn’t have to spend time to explain what “user experience design” was all about, only to have people stare at me as though I had just said that I was a jigsaw-puzzle maker or sprechstalmeister in circus.

And maybe most importantly, clients understood what I was doing, and (especially) what it could mean for their business.

That’s why I now say that I’m an IA, when people ask what I do for living. One of the reasons I think it’s so important that we use this simple and easy understandable term, when we present ourselves, is that it keeps the branding of our industry strong and recognisable. Yet the term is broad enough to contain many different variations within our community and continuously encourages constructive debates. This is also one of the reasons I got involved in this tiresome networking task – to try to bring us closer together, in a robust European network, so that we stand stronger both individually and professionally.

Tak Sirius IT!

Sådan!!
Jeg vil gerne takke Sirius IT for et fremragende og forbilledligt arrangement, torsdag den 6. november.

Sirius IT gav os et åbent og ærligt indblik i deres tanker og metoder i forhold til at anvende filmmediet i formidling/markedsføring af en produktserie.

Det var meget lærerigt og gav en god og konstruktiv diskussion efterfølgende, hvor vi fik et interessant eksempel på enkel formidling af komplekse koncepter.

Vi vendte (som sædvanligt) lige spørgsmålet om hvordan vi styrke UX/IA miljøet i DK. Og svaret er selvfølgelig engagement. Så til de af jer, der ikke havde tid eller lyst til at komme; I gik glip af noget værdifuld viden. Jeg gik fra mødet både oplyst og inspireret.

Udover folkene fra Sirius IT var vi ”the usual suspects”; FatDUX, Creuna og 1508, som meddelte at ville stå for næste møde, en gang i slutningen af januar. Mere om det, formentlig.

Svar til Dorte Toft

Al den hæder, der er tilfaldet en række danske produkter i en periode i efterkrigstiden, har i betydelig grad bidraget til begrebet “Danish Design”, og er samtidig netop en af grundene til at produkter som Ipod og flip IKKE kommer fra Danmark.

“Dansk design” en så indarbejdet i dansk selvforståelse, at vi tror, at det er noget medfødt. Det giver mange glade amatører, men få talenter. Og en kulturarv, der bliver forvaltet af mennesker, der er uddannet til alt muligt andet end at forstå at skabe produkter, der tilgodeser brugerne.

Det giver os produkter som B&Os Serena (til 8.000 kr!!). Og fjerner os fra markedet for de enkelte, praktiske og smukke løsninger, som bl.a. Apple nu forsyner os med. Jeg ville græde tørre tårer, hvis det ikke også var min betalingsbalance.