In-house design teams - what do you call yourselves?
5 Mar 2011 - 7:14pm
7 replies
1287 reads
Shawn C
2009
I'm looking for ideas on what an in-house interactive/interaction/web design team should be called within a larger design group at a large (conservative) corporation. The designers will handle visual design, consult on interaction design best practices for applications, manage online campaigns, etc -- broad enough that I'm not sure that web design/interactive design/new media design really fit, but something like "Media Technology" or similar isn't right either.
Any thoughts?
thank you!
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Interactive Media or Interactive Marketing might be options
I've consulted with a number of conservative companies and their teams were called:
Will they cover this function for the whole corporation, or are there many similar groups peppered throughout the organization?
/pb
Thank you for the comments!
There are large teams of developers for different applications, but all design-related work up to now has been handled by outside vendors or designers under a broad marketing group, it just hasn't been a priority. But there is more awareness now around user experience and a broader role for design, so I hope to position the group in a way that allows for interaction and interface design on financial applications, public websites, as well as online marketing campaigns. I like Interactive Design; good point about 'marketing' in the title being a potential put off for recruiting, though it seems pretty widely used on job boards; What about Interactive Design and New Media?
It might seem like a power grab, depending on how other groups within your organization are structured, but choosing a name like "Customer Experience" or "Online Customer Experience" might help you market yourselves within the organization.
It also might help you recruit. I know that I'd be less than excited to work in a group called "interactive marketing"
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Christopher
I've worked in a lot of countries and companies, and the universal term for the function you describe seems to be the umbrella term user experience. I named a LinkedIn group I started Digital Design Strategy instead of User Experience Strategy because the focus is all digital design, including mobile, in-store signage, BMW i-series cars, tablets, smart refrigerators, and devices yet to be released.
Of the terms you mentioned, Interactive Design seems like a pretty comprehensive name. New Media sounds, ironically, old fashioned, because all the old media seems to be focused on their digital versions. I don't think the term marketing is a put-off, if all the applications you mentioned are, in fact, marketing, and if you'd like the people you're recruiting to have a marketing background.
/pb
Personally, calling a group "Interactive Design" has always bugged me.
If you work in that group, are you an Interactive Designer? As opposed to...? Even the visual designers I know will email, IM, even occassionally talk with you, get this... in conversation. They're pretty interactive designers too.
I know it's petty semantics, but it's also one of those details.