There has been increasing interest in the adoption of UX within corporate environments, and what competencies translate into effective UX design. This paper addresses the space between pedagogy and UX practice through the lens of competence, with the goal of understanding how students are initiated into the practice community, how their perception of competence shifts over time, and what factors influence this shift. A 12-week longitudinal data collection, including surveys and interviews, documents this shift, with participants beginning internships and full-time positions in UX. Students and early professionals were asked to assess their level of competence and factors that influenced competence. A co-construction of identity between the designer and their environment is proposed, with a variety of factors relating to tool and representational knowledge, complexity, and corporate culture influencing perceptions of competence in UX over time. Opportunities for future research, particularly in building an understanding of competency in UX based on this preliminary framing of early UX practice are addressed. [Presented at CHI'14, Toronto, ON, Canada]

1. Evolution of
Design Competence
in UX Practice
!
COLIN M. GRAY
Indiana University

2. INTRO
PhD Candidate in Instructional Systems Technology at
Indiana University
Practicing graphic and interactive designer
My research focuses on design education and how
pedagogy and practice can be more strongly linked

3. THE CONTRIBUTION
Step towards an understanding of UX competence
How junior UX designers relate to their workplace
Linkages between pedagogy and practice

4. GROUNDING VIEWS OF
COMPETENCE
System of abilities applied in context (Rychen & Salganik, 2003)

5. –Weinert, 2001
“a roughly specialized system of
abilities, proficiencies, or skills
that are necessary or sufficient to
reach a specific goal [that] can be
applied to individual dispositions
or to the distribution of such
dispositions within a social group
or an institution.”

6. GROUNDING VIEWS OF
COMPETENCE
System of abilities applied in context (Rychen & Salganik, 2003)
Design ability and reflection (Arvola & Artman, 2008; Schön, 1983)
Expertise (Cross, 2004; Dreyfus, 1981; Lawson, 2004)
Learnable and teachable (Trier, 2001)

7. SO WHAT?
…FRAMING THIS STUDY
No set of UX competencies exists
Pedagogy must adapt to changes in the market
This study focuses on the liminal space where a student
becomes a practitioner

8. METHOD | PARTICIPANTS
11 PARTICIPANTS
5 STUDENTS 5 EARLY PROFESSIONALS
}
}completing an
internship
taking their
first UX job

9. METHOD | DATA COLLECTION
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
SURVEY + CRITICAL INTERVIEW
}
weekly
survey
monthly
critical interview

10. METHOD | ANALYSIS
111 SURVEY RESPONSES 23 INTERVIEWS+
QUALITATIVE QUANTITATIVE
}
thematic analysis
}
scatterplot

11. FINDINGS &
DISCUSSION


12. FINDINGS |
INTERNS
W1 W5 W9
10
8
6
4

13. FINDINGS |
EARLY PROFESSIONALS
W1 W5 W9
10
8
6
4

14. FINDINGS |
EMERGENT THEMES
Tool/representational
knowledge
Dealing with complexity
Vocabulary/language/
communication
Design leadership
Internal/external
upskilling
Reconciling corporate
reality/culture
Designerly identity

15. FINDINGS |
EMERGENT THEMES
Tool/representational
knowledge
Dealing with complexity
Vocabulary/language/
communication
Design leadership
Internal/external
upskilling
Reconciling corporate
reality/culture
Designerly identity

16. –Intern, Week 7
“I've learned to stop worrying
about what software I'm using
and leverage what I know.”
TOOL/REPRESENTATIONAL KNOWLEDGE

17. –Early Professional, Week 8
“They sort of test the limit of what
our ‘nice’ designs do once they get
thrown into a more complex and
outlier situation. It's a lot about
making a judgment call and
keeping up with consistency.”
DEALING WITH COMPLEXITY

18. –Intern, Week 3
“We had a phone call with a client
today. We were briefed before to
only speak if ‘teed’ up to speak.
That is such an abrasive thought
for a HUMAN computer
interaction designer.”
DESIGNERLY IDENTITY

19. DISCUSSION
Competence in UX as:
Fluid
Personally and organizationally situated
Bound to context of use
Based on the identity and life experience of the
individual designer

20. DISCUSSION |
FLUIDITY OF COMPETENCE
Corporate culture was the center of the beginning UX
designer’s experience
Designers experienced a decreasing reliance on tool
knowledge, focusing more on soft skills
Movement to self-directed learning
Co-constructing a professional identity

21. DISCUSSION |
IDENTITY
Students actively evaluated their own identity in relation
to their work environment
They had to reconcile inconsistencies between
pedagogy and authentic practice, including:
what it means to be a competent UX designer
how their identity is shaped by their
work environment

22. IMPLICATIONS &
FUTURE WORK
HCI pedagogy linked to professional practice
UX competencies and individual design identity
Larger scale work

23. THANK YOU
Erik Stolterman
Martin A. Siegel
Omar Sosa-Tzec
Jordan Beck
Gary Dickson
!
NSF Grant #1115532