Becoming a Usability Professional
About a year ago, I decided that usability/human factors was what I really wanted to do. At the time, I was finishing up my B.S. Information Technology and realizing that programming definitely wasn’t something I wanted to do. The economy was on it’s way down, so I knew that the best way to get into the field was to get an education in HCI - a master’s degree. I took the GRE, gathered my letters of recommendation and applied to several schools. A few months later, I decided to accept the offer from University College London.
I was on the brink submitting my work resignation when I decided that grad school was too much money on top of my current academic debt. I didn’t want to be paying off school loans until I’m 40. I withdrew from the master’s program a few days later.
The university was very understanding and gave me the opportunity to attend next year, but since my girlfriend just moved across the country to be with me, it will be just as difficult to go next year.
Since I decided not to go to grad school, I’ve been thinking about other ways to gain experience in usability/human factors:
- My weblog. While it doesn’t qualify as real experience, it keeps me sharp by compelling me to read a lot about usability and write about usability outside of work. It’s also enabled me to join a great community of other user experience professionals.
- Freelance discount usability reviews. Unraveled Usability has been brewing for over eight months now. I think it’s about time I opened for business. Details to come within the next month.
- A usability certification, such as HFI’s Certified Usability Analyst. See previous post.
- Work more usability into my current job, which seems increasingly difficult due to poor management and lack of process within our department. Simple heuristic reviews of websites are the most usability I get to do now.
To summarize, I really want to do more usability, but I lack real world experience. Grad school is a fading possibility. Finding a usability internship is like finding a pin in a haystack, especially in the current economic climate. I have various ideas on gaining additional experience, now it’s just a matter of execution.
Go back to the top of this entry ↑
Comments
University of Dayton has a HF program in Psychology and Wright State University (in Dayton) have 2 HF programs (Psych & Engineering). Both schools are not too far away from Columbus. Both have provided TA/RA positions w/ stipens if you qualify. I know they don’t focus on HCI exclusively, but I think they both are good programs. Plus WSU offered internship programs to work in local companies back in the mid 90’s. Plus I think WSU Psych could use a good good web design RA.
Anonymous on 15 Aug 02
Wow, thanks for the great school tips, Dave. I’ll look into both of those programs.
Joshua on 15 Aug 02
Your post has the exact same title as an alertbox of Nielsen’s:
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20020722.html that made me fume.
Don’t worry about his conclusion that it will take 10 years. Keep at it and you will get there. Use as many user-centred design techniques as you possibly can, and do as many quick & dirty usability evaluations as you can. You will learn useful things every time you do.
Please don’t fall into the trap of doing ‘expert reviews’. Even the ‘experts’ don’t get it right, and that is bad for the entire field.
Donna Maurer on 15 Aug 02
Jack, usability principles do embody a significant portion of my standards and reviews, however it’s been difficult to convey to my department the importance of usability. I just need to keep talking about it.
Donna, if you don’t recommend doing ‘expert reviews’, is there any usability work I can do on a freelance basis that you do recommend?
Thanks for both of your suggestions.
Joshua on 15 Aug 02
Incorporate “usability” into your daily conversations. Simply use the word often. When you talk about why a particular design technique is bad, talk about its poor usability and cite research. You don’t need to use specifics. Just, “Research has found that some people misinterpret that…” or “get confused by…” etc. (But don’t say anything you can’t reasonably back up.) If you provide written reviews, cite URLs to articles on those subjects. The URLs back up your viewpoint and convey that there is more than just “opinion” behind your words. IMHO, this is how Uncle Jakob rose to power. People used his articles for these purposes.
Jack on 15 Aug 02
From Josh’s resume: “Maintaining the quality of the college website through the enforcement of standards and regular quality assurance reviews”
Don’t usability principles embody a significant portion of your standards and reviews? Lobby for professional memberships and training to strengthen what you already do.
You won’t get to dabble with user testing unless you can prove a need. Over time, gather examples of how people have interacted with the web site in ways you could not have anticipated. It helps most if the person you report to asks you questions about web site and you can turn that around to demonstrate the need to test.
Jack on 15 Aug 02
Let me assure everyone out there that Joshua uses the word “usability” as much as he possible can in daily conversation.
Eric Bort on 19 Aug 02
I think you made a good call in keeping your job and trying to learning usability on your own. Grad school tends to be more academia-oriented than applied and I feel I learned more through working,reading on my own and attending seminars such as the Nieslen-Norman group than I have been in my HCI masters program(where incidentally a lot of the grads are having trouble finding jobs). You don’t lack real world experience—most usability jobs nowadays want someone who has development experience as well so don’t sell yourself short. Hope you can attend CHI or UPA conference—great places to network.
Marcela on 18 Mar 03
Marcela, I’m actually seriously thinking about attending grad school in 2003/2004. What school are you attending if you don’t mind me asking? I realize that most usability jobs want someone who has development experience as well, but many usability jobs that I see posted on the Web require an advanced degree in HCI, which usually translates to a Masters and sometimes even a Ph.D. I’d like to hear more about your experiences in HCI so drop me a line if you get a chance.
Joshua on 18 Mar 03