[IxDA Discuss] IxD and related roles - is it about naming or type of company/products?

[Adler]

hi,

Does anyone know of a diagram or scheme that situates IxD and other
related (or somewhat) positions?


Last weekend I met a few friends all coming from an engineering
degree, working in different countries and having related roles (I'm
simplifying a bit!!) but with different names. To mention a few of the
roles: Interaction Designer, Functional Analyst, User Experience,
Business Analyst.

The work is done and presented in different ways, however there is a
common item - gathering user needs and specifying them. (ok, the
design part quite different in each position, I said - I'm simplifying
a "bit")

At the end everyone wants to design usable products though some do
more or less design than others. I start to think that it would be
interesting to map these roles is some sort of diagram or scheme,
e.g.:
Interaction Designer, User Experience, Usability, Business Analyst,
Functional Analyst
(maybe add others)

and then see what's overlapping and what's missing. I guess many
companies never heard about Interaction Design and if they hear about
it they might think they have already a similar role (though, we know
it isn't covering many important details of IxD...)


I have the feeling that this would help us and the companies to
understand where IxD stands in relation to other disciplines (or
company positions) and will help us to better evangelise the need for
Interaction Designers ;-)

what others think?

Cheers,
Adler


-- 
Interaction Design
HCI Group, KTH, Stockholm, Sweden
adler at BEST.eu.org | http://www.nada.kth.se/~adler/
http://www.linkedin.com/in/adler