IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication is soliciting article proposals for an upcoming special issue that will examine the state of UX programs within technical communication and beyond. This special issue will be published in December 2023, and the guest editors are Guiseppe Getto, and Jack T. Labriola, and Amber Lancaster.
SPECIAL ISSUE BRIEF DESCRIPTION
As the technical and professional communication (TPC) field evolves, many college graduates and job seekers with TPC-related training are pursuing careers as user experience (UX) professionals. Salary surveys and job postings have shown similarities between TPC and UX job skills and competencies, suggesting that universities should continue to update their curriculum to better prepare TPC students for careers as UX professionals (UXers). And though many TPC programs already include individual courses, certificates, majors, and even Master’s degrees in UX, as a field we have not documented the growth of UX as a major emphasis within TPC programs. In addition, many UX designers are undoubtedly receiving on-the-job training, and there has been virtually no research on these industry-based training programs.
POSSIBLE TOPICS FOR SUBMISSIONS
Thus, our proposed special issue extends TPC scholarship on UX to the level of program development, within both academia and industry. We need to document the growth of UX within TPC as a field to learn from one another and to improve. We are interested in submissions from researchers across the discipline that address the following questions:
- How are students and early-career professionals getting trained in UX? What kinds of educational, credentialing, internship, and mentoring experiences do they seek out?
- What skill sets are essential for new UX designers? How do we effectively introduce these skillsets within our programs?
- What approaches, methods, etc. are we using in our courses, credentials, and programs to introduce students to UX? How do these approaches differ from on-the-job training in venues such as industry-sponsored courses, internships, and entry-level positions?
- How do we assure rigor in the UX methods that we teach in our programs as opposed to new methods that arise in industry contexts such as guerilla usability testing and rapid prototyping? In other words, how do we help students bridge the gap between tried and true UX methods and the realities that they may face in the workforce?
- What terms and methods within UX are beginning to shift and how do we account for these shifts within our programmatic offerings?
- How are our programs responding to new trends that arise in UX as it is a notoriously fast-moving field?
- How are programs responding to new trends that dovetail with social justice approaches and UX approaches, such as inclusive design, accessibility, and anti-racist design? How do we assure that our UX design teaching practices are representative of people of all races, genders, sexual orientations, and ability statuses?
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
To view the types of submissions we welcome for this special issue, as well as how to submit a proposal, please visit the full Call for Proposals on the IEEE TPC Website. Initial proposals are due September 1, 2022.