User Experience to engineering personnel ratios

So about 2 weeks ago I asked people to let me know what their
user-experience to engineering personnel ratios were. I was away on business
last week and this week have been processing what I was away for. Would ya
believe I was actually at a customer site?

First, let me share my situation: We are 3 designers to 240 engineers.

The numbers I received ran the gambit but there seemed to be a focus between
1 to 10-20

I did have another grouping that was closer to 1 to 1000, but this grouping
was a lot smaller.

What was equally interesting were the responses from people who felt that
the question posed was not useful. To be honest we needed the numbers not
because we believed they were relevant, but rather that management required
them.

The reality is that the issue is very subjective based on the quality of the
projects you are working on, how many projects per designer. For example
here at documentum we have 3 fulltime designers for 15 products of various
sizes and scale. What's worse is that some of these projects are produced in
other locations (other countries actually). These same designers do
research, do graphic design (when we can't outsource which is most of the
time), and of course interaction design.

It is interesting to note that some companies w/ HUGE research facitilities
didn't include those whole departments in their #'s. To me they help you
huge ways.

Anyway, that is what I have ... :)

-- dave

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