someone who asked me (in a specifically closed-end manner) if I was an anthropologist or a designer. Later at that same event, a show-of-hands survey was conducted so that people could be identified according to a fixed list of nonoverlapping educational backgrounds or professional situations. I found myself unable to raise my hand. And still, when people refer to me as an ethnography expert, I feel nervous because that fails to fully capture what I do and what I think about.

One reaction to the blurring of discipline boundaries is the emergence of alternative job titles on business cards. Even as Web 1.0 fades into distant memory, I’m sure we all know a “product management rebel” or “social science jedi.” Of course, there are many opportunities for appropriate specialization (and associated branding). A pediatric oncologist and an urogynecologist solve very different problems, while still being doctors.

The ultimate profession in the Overlap is the interpreter. Interpreters are different from translators: Where translators work on converting a fixed written text from one language to another, interpreters work in real time, as people talk to each other. Many of the interpreters I’ve worked with are living in a different culture from the one in which they were born. Others were raised in a foreign culture but return “home” to work. They may have physical characteristics and accents from one of these cultures, but their social norms and sense of self are a chunky stew of every place they’ve lived.

While we love to organize things into labeled categories, forces such as globalization are complicating that. The same branded goods and services are available everywhere. People live and work in different countries and cultures, going back and forth between various “homes” over the years. So even though McDonald’s may evoke American-ness, it can hardly be considered American when it’s in more than 100 countries. The answers to “Where are you from?” will only get more complicated. As the Overlap becomes the exception rather than the rule, the ones feeling the discomfort will be those who insist on residing outside it.

I propose the following gedanken experiement: Carry a (hypothetical) Sharpie around with you and get some practice in transforming categories into continua. Is there any Overlap possible between the north- and southbound lanes? Between HBO and Showtime? Between chocolate and vanilla? Straight and gay? Cash and credit? Paper and plastic? Yes and no? The process of trying to answer these questions will gird you for life in the Overlap.

uxtv08

October 22-24, 2008 Silicon Valley, California

http://uxTV2008.org

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Steve is the founder of Portigal Consulting, a boutique agency that helps companies discover and act on new insights about themselves and their customers. He is an accomplished instructor and public speaker, and an avid photographer who curates a Museum of Foreign Grocery Products in his home. Steve blogs regularly for All This ChittahChattah, at www.portigal.com/blog.

DOI 10.1145/1390085.1390097

Designing Interactive User Experiences for TV and Video

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