OzCHI Industry keynote

In 2006 I gave the industry keynote at OzCHI. I lamented the current state of user-centred design, expressed concern that there weren't enough skilled practitioners and suggested we should be focusing more on design and less on user-centred.Twelve years have passed. UCD is now HCD and design is being sold as the way for businesses to get ahead. Let's look at what's happened between then and now, the current state of the design industry and what might happen next.

1. OzCHI Industry Keynote Donna Spencer
2. About me • 20 years experience as a designer – mostly freelance • Many industries • 3 books, many articles, many presentations • Created UX Australia in 2009 and ran it for 9 years
3. 2006 I gave the OzCHI industry keynote. “UCD in practice: Is it working?”
4. In 2006 • UCD skills shortage • Most work done by consultants • Design by usability testing • Lack of understanding of business
5. In 2006 • New interactions (Web 2.0!) • User-generated content • Start of social media • High-profile, great products with no UCD
6. We needed to • Stop selling user-centered • Focus on design • Understand business and tech better • Collaborate, don’t work solo • No design by testing
7. And then what happened?
8. Now we call it HCD
9. Design (and design thinking) got popular
10. Design is now almost all in-house
11. Agile is (theoretically) focused on users
12. Websites and apps got good The bar got high
13. www.floraladdress.com The need for design skills has exploded
14. www.floraladdress.com Supply had to increase
15. Design is taught as discovery Many designers don’t talk to users Methods rule
16. And here we are
17. We have a lot of under-skilled designers
18. Marketing broke the internet
19. It’s still hard to get academic content
20. Conferences and meetups are great!
21. It’s not all bad • Design is becoming accepted in business • There is plenty of work • There is interesting work • There is even a work in social good and solving big problems
22. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯