IBM’s ‘T’ shaped people captures trainers’ imagination

IBM is looking to recruit ‘T’ shaped people, Dave Roberts of IBM’s Ease of Use, told practitioners at the latest Usability Professionals Association (UPA) event in London.

The ‘T’ that IBM desires is a combination of breadth of knowledge and depth of understanding. Coming at a time when training and accreditation is high on the agenda of both the UPA and the B-HCI-G, this model of skills distribution has begun to raise interest across the board.

At the HCI2001 conference, Roberts touched on the same theme in a panel on training ‘Educating tomorrow’s HCI professionals’, summing up for industry much of what the educators had been discussing. Panellist Peter Gregor of the University of Dundee added that industry wants ‘people who understand people, usability and know the limits of their own knowledge and when to consult someone else’.

Tom McEwan of Napier University, also on the panel, reminded participants of the distinction between training, which teaches methods, and education that equips people to be critical and evaluate, long after particular techniques have gone by.

The ability to think strategically was stressed, as was the value of training that depends on experience and skills as well as knowledge. Gregor said he did not see the need for a separate discipline to support ‘usability and HCI’ training and pointed out that at least 11 names exist for this ‘insecure’ field. All Dundee’s computer graduates will have conducted a project involving real users in the first year of their studies; an experience supported by formal teaching in the last year. This integration into the disciplines of design and engineering was endorsed by others, for instance, panel chair Alistair Kilgour of Heriot-Watt University, who said he looked forward to a time when such knowledge and skills exist only as part of ‘interactive system design’.

The integrated view was also prevalent at a UPA meeting earlier this year when a straw poll of attendees showed a majority did not think that usability professionals should exist in an ideal world, but that the work should be part of others’ jobs in the design process.

Roberts pointed out that they don’t expect to receive ‘HCI professionals’ to employ, but professionals with part of the specialisation that makes HCI as a whole.

If you would like to contribute to the discussion of training continuing in the various communities, contact editor@usabilitynews.com and put your views.

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