Jared Spool’s latest article “Disciplines and Professionals” posits that it doesn’t matter so much whether your team includes professional interaction designers, usability specialists, or information architects. What does matter is that the team members have some understanding of the core principles that make up each of these professions.

He also speculates about how the professionals in these fields can better dispense their wealth of know-how to the teams that don’t include experts. Spool suggests it’s up to professional support groups. And I think he might be right.

Groups like the Interaction Design Association and others have primarily been focused on facilitating conversation between professionals to help foster growth within the field. That’s a mighty fine mission, but it could certainly be taken further.

Support groups like this could do a lot, not only to evangelize the need for such understanding, but also to spread the practical information that will really help people design great experiences. Things like design principles, information about how to execute usability tests, improve design processes, different design approaches, and so on.

But anyone that knows anything about good design is in a position to do the same thing. If you’re one of them, give it a shot.

Take a look around your office tomorrow and ask yourself how you can spread the design virus. How can you encourage your team to take a closer look at what makes a great user experience? How can your team move towards improving the experiences it creates?

Posted by Robert on September 8th, 2006