Finding a Tony Hawk for the UX industry
– posted July 28th, 2009 by Cory-Ann Joseph No comments
Back in 2007, Brian wrote about how usability was going mainstream.
So what’s happened since then?
Well, not much really. According to the E-consultancy User Experience Buyer’s Guide, released last week, awareness of UX is steadily increasing, but the estimated value of the UX market in the UK is less than 1/10th of the £2.75 billion spent on Search Engine Marketing.
Surely what people do once they get to your website is just as important as getting them there?
I’m a self-confessed UX newbie. But, having previously worked in PR in both the extreme sports and online poker industries, I’m used to campaigning niche concepts.
Here’s my take on how to give the industry a much-needed PR boost.
Keep it simple
In 2002, pro skateboarder Tony Hawk did the first-ever 900° (a particularly difficult maneouvre) in Australia. It hit PR paydirt, primarily because it involved the world’s best known skateboarder at the time and was a first for the Australian market.
But even if those two things not been true, it still would have gotten coverage, because the concept - a skateboarding trick - was easy to get across.
I’ve often found mainstream media to be unaware of - and uninterested in - the niches I’ve promoted, at least initially. This has been particularly true of UX, and I can sympathise.
When I first heard of the industry myself, the sheer volume of terminology felt more than a little intimidating. Sometimes, using the terminology doesn’t make us sound more impressive - it just confuses the very people we want to educate (and impress).
Good PR involves providing clear and relevant information to your audience: journalists. The E-Consultancy Report shows the UX industry languishing in obscurity. But it doesn’t have to: we just have to find the sweet spot between what UX experts know and what the UX audience needs to know.
It’s a bird…
Skateboarders think great skate photos look like this:
Credit: Steve Gourlay
But newspapers prefer ‘Superman’ photos like this:
Credit: Globe International
So who’s right?
The temptation when you’re really passionate about something is to want people to appreciate it for the same reasons you do.
I could have pleaded with editors to run with what I thought were the best skate shots - ones with the hardest tricks, and obstacles in full view so you can see the scale of what they’re tackling. But why bother? They’d still use the ones they felt were the best for their audience.
A lack of experts? Not likely
The E-Consultancy Report identified the UX industry’s two main weaknesses:
- A lack of identifiable experts
- Not having enough experts to meet demand
It’s not the expertise (of which there’s plenty), it’s the visibility of that expertise. Simplify, man.
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Categories PR, iQ in the news
