Purple People Eaters
Every once in a while someone will ask me what I do at Sun. There is one elevator pitch that seems to work well with most people - including audiences at a conference and my high-tech-savvy-octogenarian-next-door-neighbors. And here is what I say : "My work involves making computers easy to use".
Getting into the next level of details can be tricky. Even if (especially if ?) I am talking to people who work in software. This OK-Cancel comic comes close to several conversations I have had in the past dozen years. ("So you don't implement the UI , and you dont provide the graphics ... so what exactly is it that you do again ???")
(Anyone remember that scene in Office Space? )
One of the great things about working with the Portal Server team was that they knew what services the User Experience person on the team could provide. Sure there have been times when they would have liked more true to life prototypes, or for the UI implementation to belong with the UI design group - but this is a higher and more informed level of discussion than "just give me the hex codes and images". Given that most of my team mates "get it" , I find myself even more unprepared for the casual job description conversation.
So the past two years that I have worked on the Portal Server I have :
- created user requirements based on data from customers
- created user interface flow and design specifications
- created story-boards that described how the UI would be used
- worked with the implementation team to ensure that we cross all hurdles without sacrificing the user experience
- conducted user tests
- reviewed user interfaces to see if the comply with Sun Standards and best practices
- talked to customers and customer facing folks to ensure that we were working on the right track
- worked with graphics on the visual aspect of the UI
Understandably its not easy to condense all of these into a pithy answer. Even within the User Experience community, there is often debate about the same person designing and testing the user interface. So, I have simply resigned myself to an awkward conversation following my ease of use elevator pitch. Alternately, once I have delivered the pitch I look into the sky and say "look , a purple people eater" and dart away.
The ambiguity about what user experience folks do seems to happily co-exist with some irrational exuberance about what they can do for the bottom line. I leave you with a more recent OK-Cancel comic . :)
