National Association for the Practice of Anthropology
NAPA recently conducted an online interview with Vanessa Terry, NAPA’s 2020 Volunteer of the Year Awardee for the September 2020 issue of NAPA Notes: How did you get your start in anthropology? As an undergrad I had no idea what anthropology…
On the first Tuesday of the month from June 2019 through March 2020, anthropologists working in user experience (or UX, a broad term covering many aspects of design, product usability and improvement, consumer research, and related areas) have posted detailed…
What We BelieveAnthropologists are almost uniquely capable of and trained to understand and appreciate the complexity of the context of human views, behavior, and culture. We have used our preparation to study and address myriad societal issues that have defied…
Pure Logical Thinking cannot yield us any knowledge of the empirical world; all knowledge of reality starts from experience and ends in it.” (Einstein, A. Ideas and Opinions (p.271). Crown Publishing Group. Anthropology, at its core, is known for its…
IntroEsports has emerged as a multibillion dollar industry, all within the past few decades. The global games industry is predicted to have produced $152.1 billion in 2019, with esports events in the last year handing out over $700 million in…
Interested in working in enterprise user experience (EUX)? Matt Artz discusses the opportunities and challenges of working with enterprise software and offers some tips for finding a job and being successful in EUX.
NAPA recently conducted an online interview with Brandon Meyer, the designer of the new NAPA website, and NAPA’s 2019 Volunteer of the Year Awardee for the November 2019 issue of NAPA Notes: How did you get your start in anthropology?So…
Last year, I reviewed over 150 User Experience (UX) Researcher applications to fill an open position on my team. Of those, less than twenty percent were crafted in a way that made my job as a hiring manager easy. I…
In the second half of grad school, as I began to weigh my post-PhD career options, one of the things that strongly appealed to me about an academic career was the prospect of teaching. Through several years of working as…
A sought after attribute of researchers from private companies is an aptitude to work cross-functionally, or work with colleagues outside of those from your own domain. Anthropologists are well poised to understand the importance of – and possess the ability…
Anthropologists are particularly suited to be qualitative UX researchers, and applied Anthropologists are well trained for careers in industry. I can only write about my personal experience, but if you earned a degree in anthropology, I would love to hear how similar or different your experiences have been. At the University of Memphis’ Masters of Applied Anthropology Program, we learned how to execute research methods and analysis, determine which method was best suited to particular research questions, and how to manage stakeholders. That’s all you really need to know to start your career as a User Experience Researcher (UER).
I work as a user experience (UX) researcher. When I sat down to write this post for NAPA, I was faced with a question. Am I also an anthropologist? I never thought of myself as a practitioner of anthropology. Maybe…