What is a User Experience Producer?

"What do you do for a living?" is a common and innocuous question, and one that I dread hearing in any social encounter. The job title of "Experience Producer" draws a response of "What's that?"  I have a quick answer of "I try to convince my employer to make buying and using products simple and understandable for the customer," some people are curious about how I go about doing so - which is no simple matter to explain.

So the conversation is frustrating and tedious, but it does cause me to reflect a great deal about the purpose and method of my life, insofar as my profession is concerned.  I have a long list of "things to think about" that I generally try to avoid thinking about, as the practice of defining what you do, like the practice of defining who you are, seems necessary but at the same time tainted with pedantry and narcissism - as everyone wants to think of the activities on which they spend the majority of their waking hours to be very important and finds it difficult to refrain from aggrandizing.  

A blue-collar laborer who manually tightens the bolts of the soap-dispenser inside a washing machine can likely spout a five-paragraph essay that makes him seem like the savior of the planet.  And so it follows that a white-collar worker who makes buying and using products simple can likely do the same, and can likely be far more elaborate.

I've seen obscene levels of elaboration in a number of industry discussion groups, in which someone asks the question "how do we define what we do?" and a long string of answers follows, which begins with a five-sentence description of the job and others edit and extend until it becomes a multi-paragraph manifesto that ends up being unfathomably vague and heavily seasoned with melodrama.

In general, my practice is to step back from the fray and find amusement in the irony of a pompous and incomprehensible mass of verbiage written by people whose vocation is (allegedly) to make things simple and understandable.

It's not that what they are attempting to do is unimportant - again, understanding what you are doing is critical to doing it well - nor do I have many objections to the fine details and subtle nuances that they are attempting to communicate.   But for all practical intents, when someone asks you what you do for a living, you should be able to answer in a single breath.

I do look forward to the day that the general public knows what a "User Experience Producer" is without having to explain further - with the same knowledge and familiarity they have with processions such as "accountant" or "lawyer" or "plumber."  It would make the ritual exchange of information when meeting someone for the first time so much easier.

But more importantly, if people knew what a User Experience Producer does, that would mean that it is a common profession.    And in order for it to be a common profession, that would also mean that a majority of firms seek to make their simple and effective for the customer.  What a wonderful world it would be, filled with products and services that do what we need with a minimum of effort, if the practice of user experience were taken that seriously on such a broad scale.

I'd very much like to live in that world, and give the majority of my waking hours working to achieve it.   But until I do, I expect that the best answer I can give is still the one I have spring-loaded when the question is asked:  "I try to convince my employer to make buying and using products simple and understandable for the customer."   I suppose it's as good a way as any to spend one's days.