A really interesting piece from David Travis who reflects on what he feels it takes to be a successful user experience consultant. Most of us will never be (and possibly don't want to be) a UX consultant, but I think this article is useful for the budding amateur and the jack-of-all-trades.
I think this article is worth a quick skim at least as it sets a context to what David feels constitutes the whole for a user experience specialist.
Most of us spend some time (usually not as much as we'd like) on usability and user experience while holding down a load of other responsibilities and come to the discipline from a range of backgrounds.
It's not a techie role, but techies do it. Nor is it a marketing role, or a graphic design role. Yet people from all these backgrounds and more are involved.
In many ways, for me at least, I think in the ideal world there would be no usability specialists. It would just be something that people in a range of web-related disciplines would know about and be able to integrate into their work. Having empathy with the user, like being able to read and write.
David breaks the skills set down into three areas - technical expertise, process knowledge and marketing skills. You probably don't realise it but you have at least a little of each and this article is a good way to help you focus where you can develop yourself.
What makes a great UX practitioner? article by David Travis for userfocus.co.uk
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