thoughtcrumbs

Ownership of user experience

Christina makes some excellent points about the user experience "ownership" discussion over at OK-Cancel. I've mentioned before that I'm grateful to work in a small institution where I wear all four hats (design, IA, usability, development), and that the sometimes divisive conversations about UX between designers, IAs, and usability specialists for me take the form of an interminable inner dialogue. Christina's point is that no one discipline owns UX and that the best work is done by businesses encouraging people to collaborate beyond the boundaries of their official job titles. Selected quotes:

[To designers:] Don't bag on the usability people, ask them to find out some new stuff for you to work with, and hey, ask them what they think of blue, anyhow. Design's not so precious a power that you can't ask for someone's two cents.

The MFA is the new MBA.

Spending more time building cool things or spending more time building cool strategies is better than trying to come up with yet another label for what we do, or another essay on why--instead explaining value, what if we just *be* valuable.