Those of us charged with creating useful, usable products come from many academic traditions, work in multiple settings and offer a wide variety of technical skills.  Despite these differences, our recent discussions with colleagues at the Usability Professionals Association annual conference suggest that effective usability professionals share skills, experience and personality characteristics that transcend the diversity of our backgrounds.  The best usability professionals offer well-developed skills honed by experience, and attack their challenges with tenacity, pragmatism, empathy and a sense of humor.

Skills: Price of Entry

Usability practitioners – even those new to the field – are expected to have some degree of technical proficiency or know-how in a subset of core skills.  The specific skills required vary greatly depending on the nature of the role within the larger organization; for example, different skills emerge as critical in a consulting context versus on an in-house team.  In some organizations, usability practitioners are specialists in either research or design, whereas others wear both hats.  These variables impact the relative importance of the skills outlined below. 

• Research Skills:  Usability testing, interviewing and ethnographic observation are price-of-entry skills for research practitioners.  Broader market research skills such as survey preparation and focus group moderation are also deemed valuable.
   
• Analytical Skills:  The ability to make sense of research data and determine the implications for design are a critical companion for research skills, and are essential for those who do not conduct research directly.  Analytical skills are also necessary for deconstructing design problems in lieu of user research; in this respect, analogical reasoning across domains and problem spaces is a fundamental ability.
   
• Design Skills:  The tools of the user-centered design trade include scenario development, storyboarding, process modeling, wireframing and prototyping.   Employing these tools to create elegant design solutions requires astute problem solving and the ability to simultaneously see both the forest and the trees.  Technical proficiency with software like PowerPoint, Visio, Dreamweaver or Axure is helpful for bringing design solutions to life.
   
• Interactive Technology Know-how:  Particularly in web-based applications, knowledge of specific issues like cross-platform implications and search engine optimization are deemed valuable skills for usability professionals.
   
• Business Leadership:  Just like great interfaces speak the user’s language, effective usability professionals understand the larger business context of the products they are designing.  Usability professionals with leadership skills give the user a seat at the table with business and technology constituencies.
   
• Communication:  The work of our field is accomplished through communication, be it oral or written, formal or informal.  Usability professionals must have the poise, clarity and persuasiveness to make themselves heard and understood.
   
• Interpersonal Skills:  In both in-house and consulting contexts, usability is about relationships.  To build effective relationships, usability professionals must hone their perspective-taking skills and situational sensitivity.

Experience: Been there, done that.

The best usability professionals offer a breadth of experience with a wide variety of product types, technologies and work situations.  Diversity of educational backgrounds is also common on usability teams.

• Work Experience:  Good design often involves seeing how solutions to problems in other domains may apply to the task at hand.  User-centered design experience with a wide variety of product types, technologies and work contexts provides a richer canvas for drawing these analogies.  Diverse experience is also helpful for managing the plethora of challenges that arise while shepherding a design through the development process. 
   
• Educational Experience:  Where do the best usability professionals come from – IT, psychology, graphic arts or marketing?  The answer is yes.  An individual’s specific degree seems less relevant than their ability to incorporate their educational perspective in solving design problems.  Teams composed of individuals from a variety of backgrounds can be most effective, provided they respect each other’s unique contribution and speak the shared language of user-centered design.

Personality: Making It Happen

While research and design skills are price-of-entry for usability professionals, and experience expands the scope of these skills over time, the most successful usability professionals appear to share a set of personality characteristics that uniquely equip them to meet the challenges of the profession. 

• Tenacity:  Great design comes from persistent determination to find the best solution to a problem, and to persevere until that solution is implemented.  While we may not always succeed without compromise, tenacious usability professionals are the most tireless advocates for the user.
   
• Pragmatism:  As a counterpoint to tenacity, effective usability professionals have a realistic sense of the boundaries of a problem, and how far they can push those boundaries in the interests of the user.  Those who are process-minded and detail-oriented can work within these practical constraints to produce an effective and realistic solution.
   
• Empathy:  The ability to take another’s perspective is the core of user-centered design.  Emotional sensitivity and the willingness to engage external points of view are necessary pre-cursors for using empathy as a design tool.
   
• Sense of Humor:  User-centered design is hard.  A sense of humor helps usability professionals maintain their perspective in the face of analytical, technological and political challenges.  The ability to appreciate and express wit helps practitioners improvise, stay flexible and feel more comfortable with ambiguity.  Humor is also a valuable communication tool.

So what makes a good usability professional?  With a collection of basic skills in their toolkit, the most effective practitioners offer a breadth of experience that highlights the tenacity, pragmatism, empathy and sense of humor with which they approach the challenges of user-centered design.

What do you feel are the essential characteristics of great usability professionals?