UX pioneer Rolf Molich speaking in Edinburgh

User Vision is looking forward to welcoming Rolf Molich, one of the pioneers of usability and user experience, on October 27th at 6 PM at Codebase(this will open in a new window).  Rolf will be speaking about the new professional certification programme for UX professionals (CPUX) that is managed by the User Experience Qualification Board (UXQB)(this will open in a new window).  His presentation is free and there is online registration through Eventbrite (this will open in a new window)with limited spaces available.

The UXQB certification for professionals has been a growing movement in the past couple years and is now backed by the UXPA . The programme began in Germany and Denmark and was introduced into the UK this summer when Rolf provided training for the Certified Professional for Usability and User Experience (CPUX) Foundation(this will open in a new window) certification exam. To date almost 800 people have earned the CPUX Foundation level certificate, and Rolf will tell UX professionals in Scotland about the opportunities this qualification offers for their professional and career development.  User Vision will also be offering the training to gain the CPUX qualification(this will open in a new window) on the 24-26th of November, with discounts for UXPA members.

As the UX field matures it is important to ensure that those badging themselves as “UXers” have a solid grounding in the fundamentals of the discipline such as the User Centred Design process encapsulated by the ISO 9241-210 Standard on Human Centred Design processes for Interactive Systems.  This long-established standard describes the process of creating usable designs by first researching the context of use and the user needs, then iteratively progressing the designs based on feedback, evaluations and inspections.  It is one of the themes covered by the CPUX syllabus and examination, along with the  techniques of usability testing and persona development.

The value of independence

Another reason why the CPUX qualification is attractive is that it is independently certified. There are other certified UX training programmes in which the same organisation provides the training, scores the exam and provides the qualification in their name.  However the qualifying exam for the CPUX qualifications are independently moderated and evaluated by the International Software Quality Institute (iSQI)(this will open in a new window) a leading provider of certification examinations all over the world.  This independence is one of the reasons why the programme is backed by the UXPA (this will open in a new window)and the national chapters for the UK, Germany, Switzerland and Denmark.

A chance to meet a UX pioneer 

Those who have worked in the UX field may be familiar with Rolf Molich since he, along with Jakob Nielsen, created the Heuristic Evaluation(this will open in a new window) method 25 years ago.  This structured method, based around ten basic inspection questions, was one of the first techniques to raise the awareness and practice of usability and user experience and is still widely used today.  Rolf is also the creator of the series of Comparative Usability Evaluations(this will open in a new window)  in which user experience research methods, especially usability testing and expert reviews, were applied by leaders in the UX field to examine their accuracy, effectiveness and efficiency.  Rolf’s leadership in the field is well recognised and both our CEO, Chris, and UX Director, Stephen, have participated in one of the CUE projects in the past.

We are looking forward to hearing more from Rolf about the need for UX certification and hope to see you there – sign up now to ensure your free place(this will open in a new window).