Is UX still a viable profession?

Join UX Akron for our June 2022 Online Event!

Topic: Is UX still a viable profession?
For a decade or more we've seen explosive growth for UX talent. Organizations that had little to no awareness of Design now employ swarms of UX professionals.

UX 'teams of one' have grown into departments with specialized roles, and there are more positions than can be filled. However, this growth and the broader labor market have a dark side; there are troubling trends in education and media which presage a decline in opportunity, and the commoditization of UX talent.

In this talk we will discuss those factors, and how we can confront them.

About Our Speaker
D. Ben Woods is an internationally recognized expert on design and its value to business. He has presented and conducted training and workshops for organizations throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. He has collaborated with international companies and talent; he helped to form, train, and manage a digital design team in India, worked with an electronics startup that developed an electrical engineering capability in central Europe, partnered with data scientists from Australia, and provided consulting and training in Eastern Europe.

Ben works with organizations to understand customer wants and needs and turn those insights into results. Representative outcomes from some projects he has led include: double digit improvements in customer satisfaction; doubling of conversion rates; and identifying new opportunities for monetization.

Ben’s experience spans web, mobile, custom software, and ecommerce; his industry experience ranges from manufacturing, to retail, life sciences, and financial services. He has partnered with clients ranging from small startups to some of the largest companies in the world, including General Electric, Dell, Pfizer, Rio Tinto, and Fidelity Investments.

His career in User Experience began in the late 1990s. Ben has held diverse roles, including UX management at a global B2B firm, full-time and part-time academia, and executive roles. He enjoys solving complex business problems and coaching talent to be competitive UX design professionals.

Ben earned his MS in Information Architecture and Knowledge Management at Kent State University and is a graduate of the Executive MBA program at Case Western Reserve University’s Weatherhead School of Management.

Connect with Ben:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dbenwoods/
Website: dbenwoods.com
Website: workwithcovalent.com