Que Multimedia: Part 2, A Dilemma:

Charles Field, Wednesday, May 30, 2007 @ 3:50 pm

I share the responsibilities of hiring decisions for a small consultancy and being a design educator. Hiring new staff gives me one perspective on the state of education, and designing and delivering classes another.

Our consultancy delivers user experience design for applications; the participation of any kind of designer in these tasks is a relatively new thing, and is too often seen with some suspicion by both developers and financial officers in the organizations we consult with. The ability to convey the passion that is required for the work is an asset, and one beyond any discussion of teaching methodologies. That said, I see it as vitally important work that is rooted in a strong understanding of typographic hierarchies, information design and the mechanisms of interactivity.

Experience in the former role tells me that hiring a design graduate with less than 3 to 5 years experience is usually a mistake. Surprisingly, I have had better luck with geeky film or architecture grads. They tend to have stronger conceptual abilities.

We can deduce that design programs are non-functional in developing graduates capable of exploring and understanding these tasks. This is a simple and troubling assumption, particularly as I am complicit in the activity of educating them.

The organizers of the Schools of Thought conference have recognized a broader problem, inclusive of this issue, and have organized their spring conference around it.

http://superstove.blogs.com/schoolsofthoughts3/portal/index.html

My question is this. Is it presumptuous to expect Design Schools to graduate students with even a roadmap of the skills of information design, interactivity and typography? The problem lies less with graduate programs - where students should have some breadth of experience - but is pronounced in undergraduate education.

I hear no end of lip service; these are core values all lay claim too; yet the results are a vision of the emperors new clothes.

user experience design

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