The State of User Experience

It is a source of perpetual amazement to me that so much focus, attention, and energy are given to the opinions of critics and analysts, who sit detached, off to the side, choosing to criticize the efforts of others for seemingly no reason other than to make a bold statement.

I've had the privilege of participating in the formation and growth of the User Experience Network over the past couple of years. An organization dedicated to building tools and infrastructure for individuals and organizations, this non-profit effort - driven by volunteers who give generously of their time to make it succeed - endeavors only to increase the surplus of opportunity for people in design-related fields: to give them local networks and infrastructure. To provide tools like calendars and directories that bridge specialties and ways of thinking. To maximize the value of existing groups and organizations, for the benefit of individuals and the overall community.

Yet now we've been told that user experience is dead and user experience is a quality, not a discipline, clarifications that are accompanied by fairly consistent and completely unsubstantiated criticisms of UXnet and the things we are doing.

So, it seems now is the time to stop doing the work for a moment and raise our head into the clouds and begin to engage at the semantic level, lest we allow passive observers to set the course for those of us who are trying to physically get things done. (Via knemeyer.com)