I empathise with the frustrations about UX’s identity crisis — which has been present from the beginning–certainly in the 10 years I have worked.
UX has certainly become more mainstream, and some are monopolising the trend (a new Lexus UX was just launched). I am interested in where things will go — for now I settle for the job title Designer, because this what I do.
If you look at Moore’s bell curve, we are well past the early adopter stage–UX is in the mainstream. Even so, there is still a strong undercurrent of advocates and experienced people who know the true meaning and value of UX and user-centered design.
But I do also believe that many of these folk are also wise enough to know that job titles don’t matter too much — it’s about outcomes.
I have transitioned from user experience into service design, but I feel uncomfortable about the structure you have drawn. For example, I don’t see where the user is represented in this picture.
Conversely, service design is also about actors and stakeholders as much as the experience of service users–so I’d be interested to see where this fits in.
I would also like to say that lone designers cannot control the entire experience — which is why separate disciplines or specialisms co-exist and collaborate. Where I work, service design and product design co-exist very well without hard boundaries being drawn up. Design is only about facilitating problem solving and helping to render our intent after all.
I do agree that UX can be seen as a distinct discipline — indeed the user’s experience is affected by all touchpoints and their context–which is what we study and respond to. However, the heritage of the discipline is tightly intertwined with HCI which is indeed about designing user interfaces and interactions.
The problem with venn diagrams is that it implies a hierarchy. There is none. I like how Clearleft have articulated this in a diagram that isn’t venn shaped.
A few things that I understand from my own experiences:
- Service Design and UX Design share some common skills — but also have some very different skills too.
- Service Design is even more misunderstood than UX Design
- Service Design is much more stakeholder oriented — and involves a lot of stakeholder management — business and stakeholder needs are as important as user needs– and this requires full engagement with the business, which can require different skills.
- Service Design works with Operations in a similar way that Product Designers work with Software Development.
- Service Designers don’t control the entirety of the experience–it is a more horizontal and product design is more vertical.
