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I love the HCI field (and have my degree in it)... but its academic practitioners are usually evaluative with surprisingly little generative design skill—which makes them good at finding problems in others’ work but poor at making their own :(

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This is why design agencies are still in the business of churning out trendy, derivative UI design work and why UX researchers get stuck testing the usability of these offerings (in house or out). As someone with an HCI degree who loves designing, it sucks I have to either be all design or all research. There are few roles that let you practice both. What are your thoughts on the matter? What did you do with your degree? Research or design or both?

I describe myself as a Product Designer, which is both. I think there's a good trend in the industry to combine the roles under that name (with specialists still getting hired on larger teams), but it's far from being the norm still.

Reach out if you want to chat more, contact info is in my profile.

I think my problem is I've been working in the wrong big companies that try to compartmentalize design and research to make the output more predictable and efficient.

I'll try to rebrand myself as a product designer and take my time looking for the right opportunity. Thanks for confirming this trend is real, I sensed it was on the rise.

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