Oct 17 2007
Agenda
So I’m back, first post in about a year. To be honest, I haven’t felt inspired to say anything about my profession in all of that time. Everyone gets burned out from time to time, I suppose. In any case, I had nothing to say that I didn’t see someone else say better and say first. Recently, though, my interest has become piqued by something and I need to work it out here. As Forster said, How do I know what I think until I see what I say?
So let’s see where this goes, if anywhere, and I won’t make any promises this time.
What’s on my mind
Over the last year or so, I’ve been responsible at work for recruiting usability professionals. Some of them have been very experienced, some very raw recruits with only a vague notion of what their chosen profession involves.
As well as working out how best to recruit these folks, I have also been charged with developing a training programme. This is supposed to extend not just to the new people, but also to our existing staff. The idea is to collect all of the varied things my scarily-smart colleagues know and codify them, so we can all learn from each other. Our process is under examination too – what is the best and most efficient route to a good result for our clients? So that’s what’s on my mind. Is that a tall order, or what?
So what does all of this entail? Well, let’s see:
- Defining the desired personal characteristics of a good job candidate.
- Defining the desired skill set of both job candidates and seasoned professionals.
- Identifying and communicating the tools and techniques we should all have in our toolbox.
- Reconsidering the steps in the user centred design process and the deliverables at each stage.
Now I know this stuff is debated ad infinitum on lists like the IxDA every day of the week. No matter. I need to arrive at my own answer in my own way for my own circumstances. Everything I’ve read or heard on these matters must be pushed into the grinder so I can see what comes out the end. If any of my readers are still out there, then your comments will be most welcome along the way.
I don’t intend approaching this systematically, I’ll just follow my wandering attention and see where it leads me. I hope it’ll be somewhere interesting. So that’s the plan, although as I said, no promises.
