UPA 2.0 - A New Horizon Part II

Silvia Zimmermann and Daniel Szuc

Silvia Zimmerman is the UPA President and Dan Szuc is Vice President.

Background

In January 2009, the UPA Board of Directors met in Portland, Oregon to outline the UPA Strategic Goals and Vision for 2009 and the next three to five years. As part of this Strategic Planning meeting the UPA Board also revisited the current UPA Mission Statement. Since our entire field and the reach of the UPA membership have evolved tremendously since 1992, when the UPA was founded, we thought it would be appropriate to align the UPA mission statement to reflect the current state of usability and user experience. In addition the UPA board of Directors also felt that the UPA should have a long-term vision in place.

The new UPA Vision, Mission, Goals and Objectives as well as the Strategies were presented at the UPA conference.

UPA Vision

To be the premier professional association advancing the field of UX worldwide.

UPA Mission Statement

We have revised the current UPA Mission statement to one that is more applicable to the current state of our profession.

Current Mission Statement

The Usability Professionals' Association supports usability specialists, people from all aspects of human-centered design, and the broad family of disciplines that create the user experience in promoting the design and development of usable products.

New Mission Statement

The UPA supports people who research, design, and evaluate the user experience of products and services.

The new vision and mission statement is not about being the largest organization in the user experience space rather it is about being the organization that:

1. Becomes the authoritative source on the practice of usability, UCD, and user experience.
2. Facilitates professional development and education within the UX field.
3. Promotes the business value of user experience, research, design and evaluation to business and other entities.
4. Fosters a community of user experience professionals through knowledge sharing and networking.
   1. Provide effective UPA Governance.
   2. Enhancing and providing the value of UPA membership

Along with these Goals and Objectives go 52 Projects that help us achieve our new mission and vision.

Some of these projects are more strategic than others, but all are led by UPA volunteers from around the globe. They can also be led by you if you'd wish to be more involved.

As we said in a February 2009 Voice Article, 2009 is a year of consolidation where we will fix what needs to be fixed, realign what needs realignment and start to better sell our inclusive and inspiring community of usability and user experience people around the globe. So it is with no surprise that the more strategic 2009 projects focus on:

• Local chapter strategy
• Membership Model, including membership value and retention
• Content Strategy for our publications, including our website
• Communication Strategy

We are very much looking forward to your feedback, your ideas and thoughts with regards to the new UPA vision, mission and goals and objectives. Please send your feedback to silvia.zimmermann@usability.ch.

ONE team working towards ONE vision: To become the premier professional association advancing the field of UX worldwide.