Yahoo's User Experience and Design: The Postscript

A month or two ago I blogged about Yahoo's job ad for their VP of UX and Design position. At the CHI conference, I heard that someone had been appointed, but not who, because it hadn't been officially announced yet (I had no alcohol handy with which to loosen up my former Excite colleagues now at Yahoo).

Today I was skimming the BayCHI job list as usual, marveling at the ever increasing number of positions in Interaction Design out there in Software Heaven, and I noticed a weird one at Yahoo: "Design Communicator." This is a job category created at Cooper Interaction Design, Alan Cooper's famous consulting firm. I decided I couldn't go on vacation wondering if Alan Cooper is in charge at Yahoo (not that there's anything wrong with him!), so I found the press announcement. All is well, it's not Alan, it's Larry Tesler, and it's a good thing: Yahoo! Media Relations: Yahoo Appoints Larry Tesler Head of User Experience and Design. I especially like the fact that he has that R&D history and plans to play a role in Yahoo R&D as well.