Industry of misunderstanding

I’ve been involved with a field of work called user experience design for about 25 years. It is a discipline, or a domain, much like software development or business management or leadership or legal or sales. What it is not is an industry. An industry, put simply, is a bunch of businesses or organizations that function within the same sphere of an economy like healthcare or automotive or higher education or financial services or technology or energy. If what we really mean is the digital industry, then we should say that. But user experience design is not only applicable to the world of tech that is coded by a software developer who makes the design of the thing come to life on a screen.

When did the field of user experience design (UX) become referred to as an industry? It is not a business that generates revenue unto itself so how can it be an industry? When did the title or moniker UXer come to life? It doesn’t mean anything except maybe user experience designer but then if we have that, what is a product designer? It seems all of these titles are meant to indicate work in a digital sector so we should say that.

The misunderstanding of user experience design will continue as long as we keep attaching the wrong phrases and words to them. It is sad that it’s about to turn over to 2025 and we’re in worse shape as a discipline, a domain that can apply to a lot of different industries. How hard is that to comprehend? It seems straightforward to me but that’s because I have a business background first, design is just a part of that 👿