Everyone loves the current darling of programming Q&A sites: StackOverflow. It was only a matter of time before others crowded this space with niche websites similar to it. Yesterday a new Q&A site: UXExchange was announced for user experience professionals. StackOverflow already covered a lot of user experience questions and i’ve often referred to it to get others perspective on some design decisions. But, having a new, free, collaborative Q&A site for user experience professionals is a pretty sweet deal.

One important factor i consider when reading, listening to recommendations or following user experience professionals is how their own website is designed. Naturally, excited about what’s in store, i checked out their website. Boy, was i disappointed. The entire site is lifted straight from StackOverflow including their achievements model. Wish these guys would have given the site design a little more thought.

EDIT: Matt Goddard (the creator of UXEchange’s) from comments below:

“Thanks for the review. UXExchange isn’t a copy of the stackoverflow format, it is hosted on the stackexchange format (The platform Fog Creek developed out of stackoverflow)

This was a conscious choice as i wanted good answer to be promoted over bad answers, hopefully creating a solid repository of information not just the opinion of one practitioner but validated by the community.”

Nonetheless, be sure to check them out. There are amazing usability blogs out there but i have not yet had the best incentives to stick to a particular community. UXExchange.com holds some promise. A little about them:

The goal is to build a community-led, authoritative resource on the User Experience disciplines. It’s a place where people new to our industry can ask questions about best practice and approaches to user experience and where experienced practitioners can help teach new skills and learn from each other. Like Stack Overflow (the platform this site is built on), we don’t run UX Exchange – the community does. It is collaboratively built and maintained by you. If you like a question or answer, up-vote it. If you don’t, down-vote it. Over time, UX Exchange will become increasingly valuable when there is a consensus on good information which will serve the community for the future.

Popularity: 40%

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