More than “they are just the graphics guys”

After a couple of years working on a mainly developer based company, it has been quite nice to see the Design team to grow and show it’s value in the last year. But one problem has arrived for us here in Brazil: There’s not available professionals around.

I know nowadays everyone is facing problems in hiring good professionals but my point is that here you can always find only web-oriented guys. Not that there’s a problem in hire by talent, but I really see the day when I will hire a intern that did a lot of real user interface during his university. The courses in Brazil were first focused on graphic design, then on digital design (mainly web) and now I think that there’s a chance to influence the academia to the real interaction design, or even better to the user experience area.

For me it’s clear that UX is the umbrella of almost all design subjects thus it has a lot of potential of gathering interest from the students, but for sure they need some vision that there will be market for them to really dive into the idea.

That’s why I’m quite happy to be involved in some work with the Universities, that were only giving scholarships to Computer Science students and now is including the Design students as well.

It’s crucial to give the design students the same kind of challenge we give to the computer guys to prepare them better to the real life challenges in this increasingly digital and interactive market.

I think soon enough We can have some more interaction design oriented courses like there are already in some other countries. I will do my best to do my small part on this as good as possible.

Permanent Link » · Written on: 05-02-08 · 1 Comment »

One Response to “More than “they are just the graphics guys””

  1. Vitor Oliveira wrote:

    It’s good to see something changing. I’m a student at http://www.dcc.ufmg.br and my research is on HCI and semiotic engineering. I think not only the academia, but a lot of companies in Brazil don’t pay attention to UX. Some of the companies thinks that just a good look is fine. I hope that more focus on UX will bring great results at the academia and attention of the companies for the possibilities.

    May 2nd, 2008 at 4:45 pm

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