[IxDA Discuss] Which is the most used tool for UX nowadays?

[Chris Bernard]

On my last set of interviews, mostly director level at large enterprises I don't think I pulled a portfolio out or fired up a browser once during the interview. Those artifacts often got me in the door but what got the interest or the offer was the conversation.

Much of this will be dependent on what you're being hired to do however. Being a design manager requires a certain set of skills. Being a practice leader that owns the vision for you group requires a certain set of skills too.

Sketching and conversation represents a quick short hand for people to derive insights into how you think. It's a skill that all IxD folks will benefit from. But if you're being hired to drive Flash all day or actually be a builder of things tools are pretty important but they are really going to vary depending on where you work.

The canonical set of tools most designers need to have down are probably Adobe products such as Photoshop, Flash, Illustrator, In Design, Dreamweaver. Depending on where you go you might find other tools are important to. If you can build wireframes in Illustrator you'll find you can pick up any other tool quickly too (Visio or Omnigraffle). If you build artifacts in In Design you'll find you can quickly learn how to do it in something else (Quark, Word, PowerPoint).

As the company you work with specializes however things can get tricky. It's very likely that if you're working with .NET based shops in the coming years that they will expect or possibly demand that you're using (or at least finishing) outputs and artifacts using Expression Studio for example. Shops focused on Apollo, Flex and Flash will have similar but different expectations as will eventually the tools you use to create applications for new technologies like Google Gears.

Regarding what to get started with...
For generic design tools however I'd start with Adobe Creative Suite Premium and probably Microsoft Office with Visio (or Omnigraffle if you're on a Mac). If you're looking at doing .NET work or designing for it you should consider adding Expression Studio to your arsenal as well.



Chris Bernard
Microsoft
User Experience Evangelist
chris.bernard at microsoft.com
312.925.4095



Blog: www.designthinkingdigest.com
Design: www.microsoft.com/design
Tools: www.microsoft.com/expression

"The future is already here. It's just not evenly distributed." William Gibson


-----Original Message-----
From: discuss-bounces at lists.interactiondesigners.com [mailto:discuss-bounces at lists.interactiondesigners.com] On Behalf Of Vishal Iyer
Sent: Friday, June 01, 2007 6:49 AM
To: IxDA Discuss
Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] Which is the most used tool for UX nowadays?

Right on Sebi. How many interviews have folks had the pleasure of answering
the question 'whats your design philosophy?' I've never had questions beyond
my degrees, projects, tools, methods (the better ones) etc. I'm curious to
know if people with more experience have it any different (apart from
questions about their experience itself).


But although learning how to use your brain may play a stronger role in how
> well you do your job, knowing how to use the tools (and your results,
> ofcourse) is what actually gets you the job, unfortunately (at least at
> junior level). Because you will always get to that part of the interview /
> job requirements: So, do you know Visio? Powerpoint? Flash? Axure?
> Omnigrafle? Html + CSS? etc?
>
>

--
-Vishal
http://www.vishaliyer.com
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