Say What?

[Windy Miller]

I just had an email from an IT recruitment agency. It seems they are looking for a User Experience Consultant.

Skills needed
- Business & User requirements Gathering, Stakeholder Workshops and prioritisation and Scoping, information Architecture
- Personas, User Journeys, Concept maps, Site maps/Process flows, Wireframes, Prototypes, content Strategy
- Content Strategy, Taxonomy, Content Matrices and usability
- Formal usability testing, Informal/guerrilla usability testing, User Research and analytics and demonstrate expertise of at least two of the key UXP disciplines.

WTF did all THAT mean???

Hmmm I think I'll pass this time!

 

[the snooper]

WTF did all THAT mean???

it means can you use a computer

 

[rtbcomp]

it means can you use a computer

And don't actually do anything useful.

 

[Ed.]

Here are the requirements of the UXP.


Job Description The User Experience Architect/Designer (UXA) (UXD) plays a key role in the lifecycle of every web project by working alongside front-end developers, business analysts, technical staff, and visual designers to identify requirements, study users, and craft experiences that translate business and user needs into informed, highly engaging sites and products—the overarching goal is to ensure the products / sites developed are designed with the end-user in mind.
The User Experience Architect / Designer is an experienced, versatile, internal-facing position with opportunity to shape and communicate user experience strategy and design. The UXA/UXD partners with the Sr. Manager, Enterprise Portal to manage the integration of the information design as a key component of web and technology products. The UXA/UXD is responsible for the document deliverables, including but not limited to: discovery documents, interaction design specifications, site architecture maps, user personas, and page schematics based on RHI methodology and standards.
The UXA/UXD will work closely with the Sr. Manager, Enterprise Portal, Enterprise Portal development team, product management team, IT, development team and Marketing to ensure that the user needs and expectations are the key drivers for feature ideas and throughout the software development life cycle.

Job Duties/Requirements •Bachelor’s degree in a related area such as psychology, human factors, HCI or a Bachelors Degree in Business Management with UXP Architect work experience is required.
•4+ years of experience in user research, user interface design, information architecture, usability testing, human factors, and other related disciplines within a consultative or corporate environment.
•Ability to create visual designs for desktop software and transactional Web sites is required.
•Solid understanding of HTML, Cascading Style Sheets, and JavaScript is required.
•Proficient in MS Office products -especially Word, PowerPoint and visio is required.
•Experience with full software development lifecycle, graphic applications, portal technology and content management systems are required.
•Familiarity with JavaScript libraries and tools (jQuery, Prototype, JSLint, etc.) is a plus.
•Experience using content management software, especially Interwoven TeamSite, or Vignette Content Management (VCM) a plus.
•Experience with enterprise applications, especially Exchange, Interwove, SharePoint and LDAP a plus.
•Extensive experience in UXP / UXA methodologies is required.
•Solid understanding of each phase of the UXP cycle from strategic to tactical
•Excellent oral/written communication skills.
•Demonstrated time management skills.
•Strong interpersonal skills that will enable this position to work well with key stake holders; team organization skills..
•Ability to communicate complex technical information to less-technical users
Job DescriptionThe User Experience Architect/Designer (UXA) (UXD) plays a key role in the lifecycle of every web project by working alongside front-end developers, business analysts, technical staff, and visual designers to identify requirements, study users, and craft experiences that translate business and user needs into informed, highly engaging sites and products—the overarching goal is to ensure the products / sites developed are designed with the end-user in mind.

It's a bit like "if you have to ask then you definetly aren't qualified"

Forgot to mention another requirement, which is having a proficiency in spouting waffle and talking bulls..t and also to appear that you are doing something useful whilst taking a simple thing to do and making making it 10 times harder. To sum up, making a good looking user friendly website!

 

[Chipper]

So it's just a job ad for a specialist trade..?

Building a large website isn't done by one person, you have back-end programmers, designers, and builders. In a complex site what you see is the tip of a big fat iceberg, and that job desc is just for someone to drive the design of how people will interact/use the site, not how pretty it looks. Just one job in a team.

People are trying to formalise processes to avoid wasting time and sh*tloads of money and ending up with flawed sites. OK It is going too far sometimes with the level of faff and detail, but still it makes sense to try and improve processes.
The second is just a detailed description. If you ever have the joy of working in a multi-discpline setup trying to pull them all together, you'll see there's nothing remarkable in that job desc, and it's just containing terms that have meaning to the trade so not really surprising.

 

[TechnicAl]

sluruppy slurrupy down the throcus........deep joy

 

[Windy Miller]

Well I've worked in IT for about 17 years now, and of all the job specs that have landed in my inbox over the years, that one had the most pretentious techno babbly gobledy b0ll0x that I have ever seen. I hate all this trendy techie language! FFS speak plain English!

 

[Robotstar5]

I hate all this trendy techie language! FFS speak plain English!

If they did that, they could only ask for about 10% of the salary!

 

[Chipper]

Well it may look pretentious to you WM but it's normal terms for such a post in large web projects. Although I've banned the word "deliverables" round here... Been in IT 24 yrs now, but that means naff all in regard to specialisms.