I'm trying to establish how many computer software usability
professionals there are in the world.  By usability professional I
mean a consultant who works fulltime assessing, designing, reviewing
but NOT implementing user interfaces and user interaction of computer
systems.

There is a global usability professional body organisation at
http://www.upassoc.org/.  I understand they have about 2300 members,
about 1/3 non-us.  Also there are other chapters of this organisation
that are country specific eg http://www.ukupa.org.uk/

There may be many professionals who don't belong to the organisation,
and some user's will not be full time.

Additionally the UPA holds a yearly conference, this years had 525
attendees.  http://www.upassoc.org/conferences_and_events/upa_conference/2005/index.html

I'm having trouble figuring out the bigger picture.  With 2300
members, and 525 people at the conference this year, this suggests
that the number of global usability consultants might be bigger than
the number of UPA members.  The conference isn't free, so I think it's
a good measuring stick for people serious about usability.

A good answer will find some independant information about usability
consultant numbers, or find information that lets me extrapolate these
numbers somehow.

Thanks!

---

Request for Question Clarification by bobbie7-ga on 15 Sep 2005 19:25 PDT

Hello Damonvanopdorp,

I located one figure regarding the number of usability professionals
worldwide at the ACM Portal published by the Association for Computing
Machinery.

Excerpt:

"The world has only about 20,000 usability professionals."

http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=291470

Please let me know if this figure is helpful.

Thanks,
Bobbie7

---

Clarification of Question by damonvanopdorp-ga on 15 Sep 2005 22:04 PDT

Hi Bobbie7,

This is a good kind of thing I'm after.  It looks like the reviewer of
that paper is suggesting the figure of 20,000 usability professionals.

Ideally I'd like to know why the reviewer made this assertion, it
suggests there is another source of information that I'm not aware of.

It would be nice if you could find another independant figure, or if
you could find a way for me contact the reviewer if you are allowed to
do that.

Thanks,

Damon

Dear Damon,

Thank you for your clarification. I have been researching your
question and unfortunately I have not been able to locate another
global figure; however I did locate the contact information for the
reviewer and the author of the article. I also found the estimated
number of usability professionals in Israel.

Here are my findings


Excerpt from the ACM Portal published by the Association for Computing Machinery:
"The world has only about 20,000 usability professionals."

Read more here:
http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=291470


=============================================


There are an estimated 200 usability professionals in Israel.

Excerpt:

?In his March 2004 Alertbox, Jakob Nielsen noted that today there are
2.3 million programmers in the U.S. and current best practices call
for allocating 10% of development staff to usability to achieve the
minimum standards for good design. Nielsen doubts that there are
30,000 usability professionals in the U.S.  In Israel, there are
160,000 employees in the high-tech industry and an estimated number of
200 usability professionals. Why is the number so small? It may be as
simple as this: Many Israeli corporations that should invest in HCI
activities have never even heard of it. It?s simple economics ? the
supply and demand are in balance, but are balanced at a very low
level.?

UPA, 2004. Reprinted from User Experience Magazine, Volume 3, Number 2 (Fall 2004)
http://www.israchi.org/IsraCHI/Services/Resources/Publications/Swimming%20upstream.htm



=============================================



Contact information for the reviewer Brad A. Meyers

Brad A. Myers

?Brad A. Myers is a Professor in the Human-Computer Interaction
Institute in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon
University, where he is the principal investigator for various
research projects including: Silver Multi-Media Authoring, Natural
Programming, the Pebbles Hand-Held Computer Project, User Interface
Software, and Demonstrational Interfaces. He is the author or editor
of over 250 publications, including the books "Creating User
Interfaces by Demonstration" and "Languages for Developing User
Interfaces," and he is on the editorial board of five journals. He has
been a consultant on user interface design and implementation to over
50 companies, and regularly teaches courses on user interface
software.?

Brad A. Myers
Professor
Human Computer Interaction Institute
School of Computer Science
Carnegie Mellon University
5000 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh,
PA 15213-3891 USA
Phone: 412-268-5150 
FAX: 412-268-1266
Email: bam@cs.cmu.edu
E-mail: brad.myers@cs.cmu.edu 

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~bam/

Resume
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~bam/resume.html


=============================================


Here is contact information for the author, Jakob Nielsen, at Nielson
Norman Group.

Dr. Jakob Nielsen 
Nielsen Norman Group 
48105 Warm Springs Blvd. 
Fremont, CA 94539-7498 
USA 
Contact: nielsen@nngroup.com 
TEL. (415) 682-0688 


Read his interesting biography here:
http://www.useit.com/jakob/


Website:  
http://www.useit.com/


Nielsen Norman Group 
http://www.nngroup.com/


=============================================


Search terms used:

?2500..500000 usability professionals? 
://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2005-18,GGLD:en&q=%E2%80%9C2500%2E%2E500000+usability+professionals%E2%80%9D


I hope the information provided is helpful!

Best regards,
Bobbie7