In this white paper, HFI CEO Dr. Eric Schaffer talks about career paths and opportunities for UX professionals in the expanding UX field. With over 25 years as a thought leader in user experience design, and experience training thousands of UX professionals, Eric discusses: The ideal career and educational background for a UX professional The importance of understanding UX strategy The need to expand UX capability to work with advanced tools and knowledge management The value of mentors How companies evaluate candidates for UX jobs The future of the UX field “The UX field is a great place to be working. And it's a place where we're seeing tremendous growth. Currently, there may be 50,000 people globally who have any kind of serious capability in the field. But if you look at how many people you really need — you probably need about 7 million people doing UX work.” About the author Dr. Eric Schaffer is the founder and CEO of Human Factors International. His book, Institutionalization of UX: A Step-by-Step Guide to a User Experience Practice, provides a roadmap for companies to make usability a systematic, routine practice throughout their organizations. Dr. Schaffer also co-developed The HFI Framework™, an ISO-certifiable process for user-centered design, built on principles from human-computer interaction, ergonomics, psychology, computer science, and marketing. Dr. Schaffer has completed projects for more than 100 Fortune 500 clients, providing user experience design consulting and training. He is a member of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society and a Certified Professional Ergonomist.