User Experience Education

Tom Smith's diagram is yet another illustration of the multidisciplinary nature of user experience. His network diagram shows connections between multiple fields, methods, and thinkers, clustered like so:

* Knowing the technology (e.g., content management)
* Knowing what you have to work with (e.g., content inventory)
* Knowing how the mind works (e.g., mental models)
* Knowing what people really want (e.g., story boards)
* Knowing what people really have done (e.g., log file analysis)
* Knowing what users actually do and think (e.g., ethnography)
* Knowing what users want to hear (e.g., marketing)
* Understanding users are not alone (e.g., social networks)
* Knowing how you are doing (e.g., metrics)
* Knowing how this all fits together (e.g., ROI)

The obvious implication of Tom's and similar UX illustrations is that one person can't be expected to demonstrate expertise in all these areas; organizations need to invest in multi-disciplinary *teams* if they're serious about UX.

See the diagram. Too large to reproduce.