Despite its relevance and growth, UX design is still largely considered a provisional job rather than a professional field of practice. Thus, as the future looms, it is important to emphasize the holistic and multi-disciplinary nature of the craft in order to formalize related degree programs in universities, set up regulatory standards (e.g. practice license), and advance it as an established industry and legitimate career path.
Brief Overview of UX Design
The core concept of user experience or UX design is customizing technology and other utilities to suit an individual or group’s needs and preferences. That practice dates back to 500 BC and Greek civilizations that designed tools and architectural spaces to optimize space in architectural designs and ergonomics in weaponry. By the 1900s, the idea of designing structures to improve industrial production and workplace efficiency was seen as a scientific way of business management.
The early 20th century saw the application of UX design principles in engineering to enhance the usability of commercial technologies. It was also then that Donald Norman coined the term UX design, which institutionalized it as a craft dedicated to improving the overall human interface with technology and to provide solutions to everyday individual and social problems. Admittedly, however, the field started as a very technical one concerned primarily with user interface or UI UX design. It is just recently that it started adopting a more holistic approach to technological creation and customization.
A Multidisciplinary Field
As more and more technologies became available to the public, market competition also became stiff and required new competitive advantages. This required more innovative ways in designing and improving tech products. Designing UX, therefore, evolved into a more extensive process that began to include client collaboration, user research, and pre-deployment tests to assure optimum functionality and customer satisfaction. UX research companies started offering services to develop infrastructure and interfaces of mobile products, websites, and other computing technologies to various companies seeking optimum customization.
Major UX research and design firms then began involving various experts in engineering, arts, psychology, accounting, and computer science for holistic UX design approaches. Today, this has become the standard for almost every UX design service provider around the world.
Advancing the Industry
As UX design continues to evolve into a more complex process and practice involving various disciplines and individuals, questions on setting skills, expertise, regulations, and standards have emerged. For instance, there are questions on whether or not UX design practitioners must have necessary relevant college degrees.
Despite the looming controversy, there are now various online offerings for professional degree certificate or diploma courses. Although analysts point out that technical degrees may not be necessary, the advantages of having formal specializations have advantages in terms of elevating technical knowledge about the profession and its more technical aspects, which can definitely improve expertise among practitioners in the long run. Issuing a practice license and/or certification may also help promote the field not just as kind of temporary employment but as a stable industry and long-term occupation.
Conclusion
UX design is a continuously growing field and the debates on how to further advance it will abound especially that it thrives in an ever-changing world of innovation and competition. But even as these debates persist, many UX design companies, like USER, have already firmly established their commitment to product usability, desirability, and user satisfaction. To learn more about the present and future of UX design from a reliable UX company, contact us at https://www.user.com.sg/contact/.
