Top Names in User Experience?

Update:
Per comments I've added Kathy Sierra in the "established" list and Dan Brown in "up and coming".

E-consultancy recently came up with a list of top user experience professionals as ranked by general awareness and reputation.  Interesting to see that Seth Godin came up on the list as well—though I feel he's more in the marketing camp in comparison to the others.  The names are:

1) Jakob Nielsen
2) Steve Krug
3) Jared Spool
4) Donald Norman
5) Jeffrey Veen
6) Jesse James Garrett
7) Louis Rosenfeld
8) Jenifer Tidwell
9) Seth Godin
10) Eisenberg brothers

So let's have a little fun.  I've re-created the list and swapped out Seth and the Eisenberg brothers (an editorial modification).  I also added a second list with some names that aren't as recognizable, but are making an impact in the profession (including yours truly—hey, it's my blog ;).  In the "democratized" Web—how do you see it?  Voting on the ones you feel strongly about will probably move them up on the list.  Not selecting will have the opposite effect.  You can also add names manually if you don't see someone who you think should be on the list.  I'll give this some time and post the results when activity dies down.

I don't know where this will go—but what the heck?
Feed readers can vote here and here.

Comments

[Jared M. Spool]

If I win, do I get to appear on Letterman and go golfing with Tony Danza?

[DA]

Jared,

If you win, you get dinner in Austin. And I'll see if I can get Tony Danza to come as well... ;-)

[Bryan Eisenberg]

David,

I'd have no problem being cut out if the list was top usability professionals, but it is top user experience professionals. I think my brother Jeff and I qualify there, as much as we sit in the marketing camp as well. I think the point is and one which we plan to make on our blog is that it really is hard in today's world to not think of experience if you are in marketing; if not you are going to have a hard time persuading customers who ignore marketing. You'll just be waiting for your cat to bark! ;-)

Jared I can't help you get on Letterman but maybe The View? David if your buying dinner in Austin can we do Uchi?

[David Malouf]

David,
I REALLY like your second list. It is old school/new school ... Kevin, maybe there is a new transformer version of the cartoon you did a few years ago in there.

Out of the old school folks I do think that Jared, Jesse and Peter Me are still as relevant today as 5 years ago.

Bryan, while I agree that "experience design" is vital to marketing, that is not the same as user experience design. I think there is a difference between those who specialize at the strategic level of experience design and those that specialize in the tactical level of user experience design.

And David, I really can't believe you included me here. I realize my work as a community organizer contributes a lot, but not like the rest of these folks. I would humbly like my name removed and I would put in either Thomas Vander Wal or Dan Brown. Old School IAs who have moved IA forward into big ways to the point where very few people really think of them as IAs any more.
-- dave

[Bryan Eisenberg]

David,

Have you read either of our books Waiting For Your Cat to Bark? or Call to Action; they are both about user experience design. Waiting For Your Cat to Bark? is a little more strategic while Call to Action deals with the tactical issues related to improving the online experience to improve conversions. We've also shared a lot of this at Jared's UI conferences for the last couple of years. If you would like I would be happy to demo our Persuasion Architecture software suite for you. That may help bring some clarity for you. Whenever we demo the software to "traditional" user experience folks they tend to drool. ;-) Some marketing folks think we are more like IA's. In fact, even one of the "top marketing blogs" lists wouldn't consider our blog a marketing blog.

[DA]

Bryan,

I haven't read the whole book but have skimmed through a couple of passages. I'm basing this on the names that I tend to see most often within the user experience community. So it is subjective, but I don't see your name popping up a lot. That said, I have a copy of the book somewhere and will dig it out.

David M. Even as an organizer, I think your name should be on the list. I have added Dan Brown per your suggestion.

Keep in mind that this is just an experiment and I love to learn from stuff like this. For example, a couple of people voted that Dan Saffer should be in the established group. Maybe they are correct. I don't want to move him now as that will take away votes—but I'll call it out in my analysis after all votes are in.

[mike dunn]

obviously jakob nielsen wrote the book on web usability pre-database era, but he has not keep up w/ the dynamic capabilities and desires of today's web users and the tools that help to satisfy them - though it could be argued that his recommendations are somewhat valid for today's limited bandwidth and browsing capable mobile web, w/ the exception of his disdain for rss, which is a perfect tool for mobile browsing...

simply look at his company's site - looks circa '94 doesn't it - http://www.nngroup.com/ ;)

[Livia Labate]

I'm sure you've seen this but... http://rosenfeldmedia.com/uxz.cgi/top/index/

[Christina]

mark hurst is definitely established... ya kidding me?

I can't decide if I'm pleased to have avoided the guru tag or not. :\

[Christina]

oh, and some names missing from the old
* Alan Cooper (way more appropriate than merholz, sierra, veen... and tidwell should be on the new)
* Paula Sher
* Richard Saul Wurman
* Nathan Shedroff (I think he coined the term...)

missing from the new
* Kevin Chang
* Jessica Hefland

[Dan Saffer]

I'm flattered to be on either list, but compared to folks like Spool, Krug, Morville, et al, I think I'm definitely categorized correctly. I'm a rookie next to that crowd!

[David Sanchez]

Why would you be treated as the Dali Lamma?, Is user experience tinkering a contribution to human existence or only for the well being of a corporation?

[DA]

@Christina, good points on your suggestions—especially Cooper. How the heck did I all miss that one?? If you can—please plug in your alternative suggestions in "other". One of th nice things about this exercise is that a lot of different names are coming out.

@Dan glad you feel you were placed in the correct "category"

@David, if you are referring to the "Guru" title that e-consultancy used—notice that I didn't use that phrase, I'm not a fan of calling anyone a Guru. But I think collecting names as "top professionals" by awareness or reputation is OK.

I'll be closing up the Poll on Sunday and posting results Monday.

[Christina]

adding them into other doesn't fix much.

[Ruairi Galavan]

- / -

I agree with the comment about Nielson not being tuned into the changing web, i think his ideas and methods are becoming more and more dated -

spool is my favourite of the moment!
all though that is changeable, i really enjoyed reading Normans stuff when i first became interested in the industry!!