Methodology of your ranking seems lacking

Feedback
#1

Can you elaborate on why you think your methodology for “Top UX School” is meaningful?

Two things you’ll need to support to make this site credible:

  1. that being hired by Google is a meaningful measure of being successful in UX
  2. your exact methodology for searching on LinkedIn you used. For example, LinkedIn only lets you see people who are in the same groups as you, or at least third degree from you. How exactly did you search?

Here’s what LinkedIn says about their search:

"What You Get When You Search on LinkedIn

Basic (free) account search results include:

  • Full profiles with names for everyone within your network (1st, 2nd, 3rd degree connections, as well as members you share groups with).
  • A maximum of 1000 results per search or 100 pages of search results.
  • Basic search result filters.

Premium account search results include:

  • Everything listed above for free members.
  • Increased People Searches for the Premium Business Plan and above.
  • To upgrade to a Premium account and see more information in your results, click Try Premium For Free in the upper right of your homepage.
#2

Hi Mariana,

Thanks for the feedback! I agree with you that the current method is lacking (I admitted the limitations at the first place in the ranking methodology page) and I’ve never said that it is meaningful.

I chose to be 100% transparent about the approach because I’m in the process of searching for a better way to do the ranking. The following are the challenges I see:

  1. Lack of data: Ideally, we’ll have a complete database of all graduate students from different programs. Maybe we can have a nice graph of where they are, how much they earn, how satisfied they feel about their career…etc. But this kind of “database” doesn’t exist or it requires a massive scale of research effort to collect and validate the data (Not very feasible since I’m the only person working on this project). I used the LinkedIn free account because that’s the tool I have access to. If you know other feasible approaches, please let me know!

  2. The definition of “meaningful”: People care about different things when they look for a program. Some need a career boost. Some care about the specialization of the program. Some want the opportunity to work in a certain country (for international students). It’s nearly impossible to find a universal way to “rank” schools. This leads to the 3rd point.

  3. Why rank? I thought about not ranking schools at all (just list them out alphabetically). However, I don’t think it would be that useful for folks who are new to the field to see “another” long list of school recommendations (there are many lists like this on the Internet already). Based on my past conversations with people, the “overall impression” from the industry is what people care about the most. Since going to grad school is a HUGE financial commitment for most people, it’s understandable that they want to know if they can expect a better career outcome.

Since I launched the site, I’ve gathered some ideas to improve the ranking methodology, such as “sending survey to industry professionals” or “let viewers upvote schools”. Feel free to share other ideas with me. Thanks!

#3

I appreciate the transparency!

I would suggest you make this more crystal clear in your tab related to methodology. Especially the LinkedIn search limitation makes this ranking just too problematic to even consider, IMHO.

In plain English, the methodology as you have it today is:

  • within 3 degrees of kaitinghuang
    and
  • worked at Google now or in past

It reminds me of the people who only hire “IDEO alums” thinking that this is a meaningful way to screen for design chops.

#4

Thanks for the feedback. As mentioned, I’m in the process of coming up a better system. At the mean time, feel free to check other more credible sources (if any).

On a side note, I have not found any ranking on the Internet that is 100% tranparent about the method. IMO, that leads to a even bigger problem of misleading ads and fake reviews.

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