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Discussion reveals an identity crisis in the profession, suggesting a need for clearer terminology and unity.
Our profession is suffering from an identity crisis. We do not agree on what our profession should be called or on the boundaries of our expertise. What should we call ourselves? Human factors engineers? Ergonomists? User Experience Professionals? Even our professional societies have changed names and redefined themselves over the years. While the confusion around what we call ourselves is real to those of us professionally engaged in this work, it is even more confusing to people outside of our profession. It is time to reach agreement on what we call ourselves. We discuss and encourage input on the following questions: • How has our profession progressed over time? • How have the terms used to describe our work and our profession changed over time? • How do we progress/adapt as individuals and in our professional societies to a changing landscape?
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Karn et al. (2025) studied this question.
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