Related Fields

This section describes the usability profession’s relationship to other fields. It includes a brief description of related fields.

Contents

What are usability professionals and how do they relate to other professions?

Usability professionals are practitioners and academics who share a common concern for the usability of human-machine systems.

Usability’s goal is to contribute to the design of a system that provides optimal human performance and ensures the best possible user experience. Practitioners carry out user-centered design activities that introduce user considerations into the system development process. Academics perform teaching duties and conduct research regarding the usability of human-machine systems. Note that the scope of user centered design is defined further in ISO 13407.

Most usability practitioners work in product development, such as software products, consumer electronics, or in the creation of devices incorporating both hardware and software components. Their chief concern is the usability of that product. The goal of their work is to contribute to the design of a system that provides optimal human performance and ensures the best possible user experience.

Usability professionals do not work in isolation – rather, they collaborate with people from many backgrounds. Usability complements and overlaps with many related professional activities including:

  • Human factors/ergonomics, which applies scientific information concerning humans to the design of objects, systems and environments for human use.  It includes designing for human physiology and optimizing performance in large corporate and military systems.
  • Experience design, which takes account of people and organizations in ways useful for business and design, and conceives, envisions, and informs what products, services, and communications to make.
  • Information architecture, which focuses on organizing and labeling web sites, intranets, online communities and software to support usability and findability.
  • Interaction design, which defines the structure and behaviors of interactive products and services and user interactions with those products and services.
  • Information design, which specializes in the organization and presentation of textual and visual information.
  • Industrial design, which focuses on physical solutions to user and manufacturer needs.
  • Graphic design, which focuses on clarity of pictorial representations and overall visual appearance.

Many usability practitioners incorporate aspects of these specialisms in their jobs. (For a more complete list, see the list of related professional organizations.) All these professions share the objective of contributing to the design of systems that work better for the people who experience them.

Related disciplines

Usability and related professions borrow from many academic disciplines including:

  • Human Computer Interaction
  • Physiology/Anthropometry
  • Anthropology
  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Behavioral Psychology
  • Experimental Psychology
  • Industrial/Organizational Psychology
  • Sociology
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Computer Science
  • Software Engineering
  • Requirements Engineering
  • Engineering
  • Library Science
  • Film
  • Design
  • Art
  • Communications
  • Technical Communication
  • Business

There are many ways of illustrating the relationship between usability and related fields, for example:

Other Professional Organizations

HCI and Human Factors

HFES

Human Factors and Ergonomics Society

 

Theory, principles, data, and other methods applied to design to optimize human well-being and overall system performance

ACM SIGCHI

Association for Computing Machinery Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction

 

Human technology and human-computer interaction (HCI)

AIS SIGHCI

AIS Special Interest Group on Human-Computer Interaction

 

Human-computer interaction (HCI) for business information systems

The British HCI group

The British HCI group

 

Analysis, design, implementation and evaluation of technologies for human use

The Ergonomics Society

The Ergonomics Society

 

Application of scientific information concerning humans to the design of objects, systems and environment for human use.

IEA

International Ergonomics Association

 

Federation of ergonomics and human factors societies

ITG

Internet Technical Group

 

Internet technologies and related behavioral phenomena

Technical Communication and Information Design

STC

Society for Technical Communication

 

Advancing the arts and sciences of technical communication

STC UUX

STC Usability and User Experience

 

Usability and usability assessment of technical communication

STC Information Design SIG

STC Information Design and Architecture SIG

 

Application of design principles to translating complex, unorganized, or unstructured data into valuable, meaningful information, combining skills in areas including graphic design, writing and editing, instructional design, human performance technology, and human factors.

IEEE-PCS

Professional Communication Society of IEEE

 

Understanding and promoting effective communication in engineering, scientific, and other technical environments

ACM/SIGDOC

ACM Special Interest Group for Documentation

 

Teacher, researcher, or practitioner of technical communication, computer science, user interface design

Information Architecture and Design

AIGA-ED

AIGA Experience Design

 

Organizational connection and communication, understanding people, in ways useful for business and design, and conceive, envision, and inform what products, services, and communications to make.

IxDA

Interaction Design Association

 

Defines the structure and behaviors of interactive products and services and user interactions with those products and services

IAI

The Information Architecture Institute

 

The art and science of organizing and labeling web sites, intranets, online communities, software, and hardware controls to support usability and findability.

ACM SIGGRAPH

Association for Computing Machinery special interest group on computer graphics and interactive techniques

 

Promote the generation and dissemination of information on computer graphics and interactive techniques

IIID

International Institute for Information Design

 

Design of visual information

ASIS&T SIGUSE

American Society for Information Science & Technology (ASIS&T) Special Interest Group Information Needs Seeking and Use (USE)

 

People's behavioral and cognitive activities as well as their affective [many people don’t know what this means – should we use a synonym (emotional) ?] states as they interact with information

ASIS&T SIGIA

American Society for Information Science and Technology Special Interest Group Information Architecture

 

Art, science, and business of organizing information so that it makes sense to people who use it

AIGA

American Institute of Graphic Arts

 

Includes book and type design, communication design, interaction design, experience design and motion graphics.

DMI

Design Management Institute

 

To advocate the economic and cultural importance of design, and to make accessible a body of knowledge on design effectiveness in business

IDSA

Industrial Designers Society of America

 

Creating and developing concepts and specifications that optimize the function, value and appearance of products and systems for the mutual benefit of both user and manufacturer

Training and Human Performance

ISPI

International Society for Performance Improvement

 

Improving productivity and performance in the workplace

ASTD

American Society for Training and Development

 

Workplace learning and performance professionals

Software Development and Project Management

ACM

Association for Computing Machinery

 

Advancing the skills of information technology professionals and students worldwide

IEEE CS

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Computer Society

 

Provider of technical information, community services, and personalized services to the world's computing professionals

PMI

Project Management Institute

 

Project management professionals worldwide

ASQ

American Society for Quality

 

Advances learning, quality improvement, and knowledge exchange to improve business results, and to create better workplaces and communities worldwide

IFIP

International Federation for Information Processing

 

Umbrella organization for national societies working in the field of information processing.

ASIS&T

 American Society for Information Science & Technology

 

New and better theories, techniques, and technologies to improve access to information

Other Societies

MRA

Marketing Research Association

 

Your link to a world of powerful resources

PDMA

The Product Development and Management Association

 

Resources for professional development, information, collaboration and promotion of new product development and management.

APA

American Psychological Association -

 

Professional and scientific organization for psychologists in the USA.  [note that there is probably an international organization but I’m not up on that.]

 APA Division 21

APA Division of Applied and Experimental and Engineering Psychology

 

The division of APA that focuses on applied experimental and engineering psychology research to improve the ability of humans to operate more effectively in a technological society.

CPSR

Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility

 

A public interest group that is concerned about the impact of technology on people.

Related Bodies of Knowledge

BOKQM

Body of Knowledge on Quality Management

CSQEBOK

American Society for Quality (ASQ) - Software Quality Engineer Certification (CSQE) Body of Knowledge

EABOK

Guide to the Enterprise Architecture Body of Knowledge

MRCBOK

Marketing Research Core Body of Knowledge

PDMA

The PDMA Body of Knowledge

PMBOK

Project Management Institute (PMI) - Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK)

SEISWEBOK

Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute Software Engineering Body of Knowledge

SRMKB

Social Research Methods Knowledge Base

SWEBOK

IEEE Software Engineering Body of Knowledge (SWEBOK)

 

ISO 13407:1999 Human centred design processes for interactive systems.  [Can be purchased from www.iso.org or webstore.ansi.org ]