Should UX researchers need a license?
Why UX Researchers should anticipate and plan to be licensed.
Last week, beneficent provocateur Jared Spool tweeted, “I think it’s only a matter of time before organizations start only hiring certified UX designers.”
In my view, UX Researchers (not just designers) should anticipate and plan to be certified and licensed.
What Are Certification and Licensure?
To see how certification and licensure work together, let’s look at the Certified Public Accountant (CPA). To be certified, an accountant must pass the CPA exam issued by a nonprofit member association. To be licensed, she would still need to complete the rest of her state’s requirements, like working one year as a public accountant. Then, she could apply for and receive a CPA license from her state. Only upon state licensure could she legally perform CPA duties, like prepare audited financial statements.
For the rest of this piece, when I refer to licensure, I am talking about a state granting individuals legal authority to practice. When I refer to certification, I’m talking about an organization conferring a symbol of credibility and competence to individuals.
Why Anticipate and Plan for Licensure?
It’s Coming
As Mr. Spool argued in his tweet, it’s just a matter of time before regulators come for UX professionals. The Cambridge Analytics scandal and others like it will only make more public the massive potential for abuse within algorithmically driven designs.
Legislation will be put in place to regulate out bad behavior. Licensing will be required in order to mitigate liability for companies. Insurers will stop covering companies that use unlicensed professionals.
It’s Time
Maybe legislation is years away. Maybe it’s months. Either way, now is the time to start working out how to craft responsible, reasonable laws.
The sooner we can get in front of regulation, the more time we’ll have to experiment, test, learn, and adapt.
Aren’t we researchers always pining for more time for discovery, exploration, and ideation? Why not start figuring out governance now before it’s imposed on us later?
It’s Ours
We don’t want to leave the governance of our profession to people who are not doing UX Research. Hairy details need to be worked out. Would regulators know what makes a survey unreliable? What about the importance of showing all resultant data? We know our craft; it’s incumbent on us to shape how its regulated.
It’s Important
We have a responsibility to our profession, to our companies, to ourselves, and especially, to our users. Pursuing high ethical, professional, and educational standards should not be something we neglect. We should view licensure as an opportunity to build a foundation for our nascent profession, something strong and flexible that will outlast us.
Where Do We Go from Here?
Certification and Licensure is just one chapter of the UX Research professionalization story. As UX Research grows from a role, job, and career into a profession, we’ll have to address interwoven concerns like:
- Ethics
- Professional standards
- Education requirements
- Public advocacy
I don’t know what all that will look like, but I’m confident in the UX Research community. We care too much about our users to let this opportunity pass us by.
Photo Credit: Ester Inbar / TandemTurkey01_ST_05
