
The UX Design Education Scam - sp4rki
http://www.andyrutledge.com/the-ux-design-education-scam.php
======
kls
While I agree that the degree mills are ripping people off and creating a
market of hacks, HCI is a subset of Human factors which is a subset of IO
psychology. As a UX professional, if one does not have any grounding in
psychology then they do not even have the qualifications to offer advice on
the proper education for UX design, many of these schools offer UX design as a
tools lab and do not broach the deeper psychological aspects of HCI. Humans
use machines in predictable behavioral patterns just as they do tools.
Understanding the thought processes that take place allow a designer to
understand why a user will opt for a certain path based on reward mechanisms,
propensity of choice and other human factors.

I love the nuevo UX movement armed with OmniGraffle, Silverback and arrogance
handing out bad advice like candy. The fact of the matter is a reputable
university is in fact the best place to learn about the human mind, because it
does not change that much over a large period of time and UX design is all
about how humans interact with machine and has very little to do with boxes on
a screen. Watering UX design down to wireframes, A/B testing and some user
prototyping is disingenuous to both the practitioner and the users. The degree
mills do it, and self proclaimed UX professional do it.

I have never seen a field so devoid of professional practitioners in my life.
Worse yet a field that is nieve to the fact that there is a broader scientific
field of study that has proven data and techniques based on scientific method.
If you ask 99% of practitioner how IO psychology relates to usability, you
will get a blank stare, in any other field the lack of such basic
understanding would be viewed as gross negligence. But some how, in UX design
a batch of tools, some photoshop skills, and trial and error makes everyone a
professional ready to dispence advice.

I tell this to everyone I talk to on the subject, if they do not have a
background in HCI, Human Factors and IO psychology they are not a UX designer
they are a hack using trial and error to come up with passable work patterns.
I don't believe that someone has to posses a degree in psychology to be a UX
professional but if they are not studied in the body of work, they are most
assuredly a hack. One just can't understand the core workings of the mind
without that grounding and without that base of knowledge to draw upon, they
are just flinging crap onto the wall and seing what sticks.

