Tips for Usability Professionals in a Down Economy
Journal of Usability Studies, Volume 4, Issue 2, February 2009, pp. 60-69
Article Contents
Tip #4: Broaden Your Other Skills
Tight economic times usually cause employers to ask their employees to take on responsibilities they might not have otherwise. Usability people who can step up to broader roles than they had before are likely to be more valued. Similarly, someone looking to hire a new usability person is more likely to be impressed with a candidate who can also do some prototyping, for example. I'm not saying that you need to become a Renaissance person, but that you might want to "spread your wings" a bit. Broadening your skills in one or more of the following areas might be appropriate:
- Skills closely allied with usability and user experience work. This could include prototyping, graphic design, information architecture, application development, accessibility, or a host of other related areas. Maybe this is the time to take that class in Dreamweaver or Photoshop that you've always wanted to take. Then try to find some opportunities to practice some of your new skills.
- Project management and team leadership skills. People who can effectively oversee and coordinate multiple aspects of a project, including schedules and resources, are highly valued. Closely related, but not the same, is being able to effectively manage people or lead teams. Organizations are becoming more and more "matrixed," where individuals have potentially several different managers or team leaders that they are responsible to. Someone who can work well in this kind of environment, and can lead teams where the team members may not actually report to them, is highly sought-after.
- Business or subject-matter skills. For most of us, usability is not our business. It's not the main thing that our company or organization is all about. In my case, that business is financial services. I've known some usability people who believe they can do an effective usability test without knowing much about the business context or subject-matter of the thing they're testing. I disagree. While you don't have to be an expert in that business, it helps if you have a basic understanding. And it helps even more if you have something beyond a basic understanding. Similarly, having a more in-depth knowledge of business in general can be very helpful. Maybe it's time to get started on that MBA degree you've thought about.
- Presentation skills. It's hard to over-emphasize the importance of presentation skills for a usability person. Most of us have learned that writing a 50-page usability report and tossing it over the wall to the project team is not the way to really have an impact on the project (except, perhaps, on their heads!). So we now do some form of presentation as a way of summarizing and highlighting our key findings and recommendations. Being able to put together an effective presentation and being able to deliver it effectively are both critical skills. Some good books are available to help you make better presentations (e.g., Duarte, 2008; Reynolds, 2008), but the best way I know to get better is to do lots of presentations and to study good presenters. Take every opportunity you can to present and watch others present (e.g., within your company, at local and national UPA meetings). One technique we've started using at my company, mainly as a way of honing presentation skills, is to give people exactly 7 ½ minutes to make a presentation on some specific topic.