Comments on 'Hiring your next user interface designer'

by Karel Thönissen

Yesterday, I posted a link to my blog on Joel on Software in a thread about blogging readers of JoS. For some reason my latest article caught attention and someone started a new discussion  (sorry, not a permalink) about my article 'Hiring your next user interface designer'. Some of the comments made are fair, yet others totally missed the point.

I agree with the original poster that my proposal is impractical, for the simple reason that there are no user interface designers with a stage director skill set on the job market. So even if one agrees with me, the problem in use interface design is not immediately solved. However, it at least gives a clue where to look, how to develop the UI design process, and what skills to look for in a new job applicant.

The claim that user interfaces should be designed by an interaction designer, is always correct by definition, but this is playing semantics. It completely avoids answering the question what the skill set of this person should be. The only fortunate thing about the term interaction designer is that it stresses the interaction between man and machine and hints at the epic element that is needed so badly in my experience.

Now more concretely, should the user interface designer be a professional stage director as was asked by Philo? As I mentioned in the article, a lot of his professional training is of no use in user interface design. Drama history and acting, are useless for the user interface designer. Scripting, directing, planning, managing, people management are useful though. The point of my article is not that the stage director has the perfect skill set for the job. The point is that he has exactly that skill that is the most important for the user interface designer. So maybe one should hire a trained stage director with sufficient affection for user interface design, or a professional developer who is a great story teller. As long as there is no specialised eduction for user interface design or interaction design, this is the best option. And when there is such a professional training, it will be more like scripting and stage directing than programming.

I thank everybody for the comments, and no, I am not an Arts & Humanities type myself (-8