From the course: Hiring and Managing UX Professionals

What is UX and where do you start?

From the course: Hiring and Managing UX Professionals

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What is UX and where do you start?

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- You have UX work that needs to get done, and you need someone to do the work. Okay. So you just go out there. Let the world know you'll be needing a UX person real soon. Enough said, right? Good luck with that. You see, UX isn't a single career. UX is really an umbrella concept that includes a whole host of interesting and exciting job possibilities. This umbrella, this collection of careers, is focused largely on the point where people meet technology. UX jobs are largely focused on improving the experience of users' or customers' interaction with screens, such as a website on a computer, an app or website on a mobile device, or a use of wearables. And interactions with single use screens, like kiosks. But this is changing. UX principles are now starting to be applied to customer interactions with organizations in ways that go far beyond the screen, and beyond digital entirely, such as with live in person interactions. Regardless of technology or service, the UX professionals that you bring on are going to be focused on the people you serve and the products that you're creating for them. Your UX professionals will have responsibility for making sure that what you offer is wholly satisfying to these intended audiences. Bringing on a full-time permanent UXer, while perhaps most frequent type of employment relationship within UX, is by no means your only option. Rather, you may find that you have limited UX needs or you have UX overflow work that is only going to be temporary. So you've got plenty of options. Having spent a good chunk of my own career as a UX consultant, freelancer and micro business owner, I can tell you that UX employment models come in all shapes and sizes. Whether you need someone for a day, a week, a month, or a year, or as long as absolutely possible, there is someone who can help you. We'll talk about the types of business relationships you may have with your UX professional shortly, but the supply demand ratio means that they are a bit hard to locate sometimes. As we go, you'll learn how you can tap into that world to bring in the right people in the right way that fits your needs and your business.

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