So what are the Qualifications of an Usability Engineer?
Usability is a broad spectrum. It has relations to human psycology, science and common sense. A Usability Engineer normally
has one or more relevant technical expertise. Some may have good exposure in user testing and experimenting. Some may have
good exposure in UI design and UI tools. So finding a Usability engineer who is a master of all skills is very difficult.
Usability plays a vital role in the field of Software engineering. Most of the IT companies list a dozen of qualifications they look in for hiring usability engineers.
From dozens of "Wanted - Usability Engineer" opportunities I found, many look for the following skillsets/ knowledge/ experiences:
-Human Factors Engineering
-Cognitive Psycology
-Experimental Psycology
-Educational Psycology
-Online Design
-Information Design
-Interaction Design
-Hypothesis Testing
-Experimental Design
-Inferential Statistics
-User Profiling
-Task Analysis
-Scenario Development
As I said earlier, I just wonder if there is any usability engineer with master knowledge of above qualifications is
available for hire. If there is such a guy, then probably he must be in his 40s working as an independent consultant.
The availability of young usability engineers or evangelists with all the above skillset is sparse. Most of the other
young usability engineers will miss one or two or even more qualifications.
Anyway, I have compiled the following explanations, for those who wish to know about these requirments .. (explanations collected from the web thru google, wikipedia etc)
Human Factors Engineering
Human Factors is often used interchangeably with User Interface Design or Human-Computer Interface. There is a lot of overlap in these disciplines; however, Human Factors generally refers to hardware design while HCI generally refers to software design. Engineering Psychologist work in both disciplines and the overlap is considered greater than the difference.
Cognitive Psycology
The scientific study of how people obtain, retrieve, store and manipulate information.
Experimental Psycology
Experimental psychology is an approach to psychology that treats it as one of the natural sciences, and therefore assumes that it is susceptible to the experimental method.
Educational Psycology (stub)
Couldnt find an appropriate explanation
Online Design (stub)
Couldnt find an appropriate explanation
Information Design
Information design is the design of information objects, and more generally the design of visual displays of data. Its most important component is structuring information so it will be as learnable or useful as possible. While information design has been practiced since the first book was written (and even before), the modern sense of the term became popular with the advent of the computer and the new efficiency in creating and manipulating data displays allowed by spreadsheet programs.
The goal of the study of information design is not only to record best practices in the area, but to formalize the skills, principles, and technology involved (in a manner similar to instructional design) and to eventually surround itself with an information design theory.
In computer science and information technology, information design is sometimes a rough synonym for information architecture, the design of information systems, databases, or data structures. This sense includes data modelling and process analysis.
Interactive Design/Interaction Design
Interaction design (IxD) is the branch of user experience design that illuminates the relationship between people and the machines they use. While interaction design has a firm foundation in the theory, practice, and methodology of traditional user interface design, its focus is on defining the complex dialogues that occur between people and interactive devices of many types-from computers to mobile communication devices to appliances.
In summary, interaction design defines
the structure and behaviors of interactive products and services
user interactions with those products and services
Hypothesis Testing (Stub, but with my own meaning )
Sort of Predictive testing. Something like "predicting or guessing that if i place the button here, the user will click it.." Could be assumption, on blind or non-strong intuitions.
Hypotheses or predictions about user behavior help us develop and refine usage scenarios and tasks.
Experimental Design (stub)
Couldnt find an appropriate explanation
Inferential Statistics
Drawing conclusion about a population, based on the sample collected. In Usability, this may apply to concluding a result based on the set of 'n' number of users from 'x' number of people in a community.
User Profiling
User profiling is capturing the needs, goals, values, expectations and habits of users and forming well-defined user groups.
Task Analysis
Task analysis analyses what a user is required to do in terms of actions and/or cognitive processes to achieve a task.
Scenario Development
User scenarios are built around defined user profiles and personas and include descriptions of common user tasks.The purpose of user scenario development is to define and understand the circumstances in which the user would be likely to use the portal. The goal is to build ideal user experiences that will most likely meet the expectation of the user group and result in the successful accomplishment of users' goals.
Hope this is helpful for those who are willing to pursue a career in usability
(Caution : I try my best to provide accurate information in my articles. But if you find any errors, please let me know. Thanks)
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