I’ve been in conversation recently with Dirk Knemeyer specifically about UXNet which is emerging to be a broad church for the design of ‘anything people experience’. Dirk is involved in UXnet on the Exec Council and we have been talking about different approaches in starting a new ‘experience’ community. There have been attempts to start this kind of thing before, most notably in my experience the AIGA Experience Design group which still continues

I think that when a discipline is building it gets two opportunties to succeed. One approach is by being accomodated in its precursor disciplines, and another is by shouting to the rooftops that ‘THIS IS DIFFERENT’ and by concentrating on points of difference rather than points of similarity. My view is the more fundamentalist one. I think usability lost its way with Neilsen, it lost sight of the customer/user. This was great while it lasted and we all got jobs, but now the usability culture palls on me. Personally, I look toward radical marketing thought to make my moves forward (Godin, Pine and Gilmore, Carbone), and I see that as the great barrier to broach rather than moving towards the tech.

Having said that, I have spent the last number of years being an integrator. I brought the disparate design and usability groups together at Zendor successfully, through customer focus and IA. I’ve also been a ‘big picture’ man for years. In 1998 I wrote an article for Interactions that included the words:

“HCI can grow by repositioning itself in industry as a discipline that is involved with designing the product interface rather than just the software user interface. If we do this then we leave ourselves free to pursue a broader, more holistic approach that can provide the user with a good experience with the product in its totality?

And I dont think I was far wrong in this in principle. But, when push comes to shove do the HCI community want any of this bigger view? I don’t think so (and its a shame, remember Jonathan Grudins levels of involvement?). Do the ‘behaviourist’ usability community want any of this big view? I don’t think so either, although I do know a number of individuals who think bigger.

So I was invigorated, excited and pleased to read Dirks recent article, the end of usability culture, the title of which I have nicked for this entry, with a question mark added. The US are clearly ahead of the game here, in their experience culture. Our UK usability culture is now, I believe, over the curve but not exhausted yet by any means, we have someway to go. So, with this in mind I think this UXnet has to be the right way, however much it is influenced by the usability aristocracy.

If you are interested, the first meeting for UXNet London is this month at 7.00pm on Thursday, 2 Dec 2004 at University College London Interaction Centre (UCLIC). Its free, but you’ll need to email Joshua Kaufman (the London UK Co-ordinator) uxnet@unraveled.com to confirm your attendance. Mail me (or Joshua) if you want more info.

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