Product UE teams Vs Project UE teams

The big debate: What is the difference and how greener is the other side? Having had worked for both the sides of the game, my personal experience has been very different. Hope thats not the same for everyone. Project Companies Experience: Project Companies first have a short term look at user experience or design. Its more on how the resource(you) are getting billed, whether the client is ready to pay for the resource, what processes will be followed(definitely not a complete UCD) and what are the deadlines and deliverables. So whats good at project or service companies? - Get to work on a variety of domains - Can innovate a lot to create new processes and be the torch bearer for UCD(quick UCD or Complete UCD) - Gets to work as an individual(which is not always good) - Gets the bouquets or the brickbats all for urself :) - Fast cycle times and can see deliverables implemented faster Product Companies Experience: Product companies are not worried about the budget. They have quite some fat to spend on UI testing and usability. They arent worried about billing. They arent worried about the product as well. Stakeholder buy in is the greatest challenge. Very politiking :) Innovation is not appraised. How you present your design is more important than the actual design or interaction So whats good about working as a UE designer in a product company? - Gets to work on a single domain (eg., ERP) - Gets to see the product from end to end(Requirements to Release) - Follow a thorough UCD process - Gets to attend good conferences and gets to meet quite some senior HCI people - Good budgets for books, resources for team, etc Takeaways: Both have their red and green palettes. Design awareness and User centric or task centric importance is maturing in countries like india. New frameworks like AJAX, XAML etc are caring more for customers' time and productivity. So user is getting the focus. So wherever you are, if you can leave a stamp of authenticity in your work and prove your mettle, you can win