Several years working in the UX field I already
had a few times a look on possible certifications and thought about the
usefulness for my daily business. Until now I thought most available certificates are too focused on
making money by some UX companies and doesn‘t provide any benefit for neither me nor
our customers.
In the last two years the CPUX was established by the UXQB (a special organisation created by the German UPA) and I tracked the process over the last years. A few months ago I convinced myself to give the certification a try and I want to share my experience and opinion on that.
In general in the UX field it is important that everybody speak the same language. From the well-established tester certificates by ISTQB (especially the Foundation Level) I experienced that a certification can fulfill this expectation. So it was interesting for me to see if this is also provided by the CPUX certificate.
I was positively surprised about the state-of-the-art iterative approach that the content is based on. The used methods and processes are very similar to my daily business.
What is very important for me as well is, that the certification is provided by an established organization (= German UPA) that is not focused on making money. The workshops for the certification are provided by various other companies. Besides that the certification itself is relatively cheap.
I have one critic regarding the content of the certification. They have described the UX roles and their responsibilities regarding the UX deliverables (page 16 in the Curriculum (pdf)). I don't think this overview helps to understand what each role should do. For example describing that the Usability Engineer is responsible for the "UX project plan" is a little bit too much simplifying the process and tasks.
In general I was positively surprised by the content of the certification and it could be a good starting point to provide an established basis and vocabulary for our industry, but at the end a certificate doesn‘t tell anything about the quality of work we deliver.