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Re: Expert/Rapid/Special Forces Design (was: Yet Another iPod Birth Story)
by Sebi Tauciuc
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[Please voluntarily trim replies to include only relevant quoted material.]
On 10/19/06, James Leftwich, IDSA <jleft@...> wrote:
>
> [Please voluntarily trim replies to include only relevant quoted
> material.]
>
>
> I greatly appreciate this spirited discussion. It's an important
> one. And I have the utmost respect for opposing points of view,
> though there are some aspects that I strongly, and historically,
> disagreed with, and I rarely see opposition rising to meet statements
> of some of the more visible pundits in the field of user experience
> and Interaction Design. So I will do it to represent the many ad
> hoc, solitary, small team with no time or budget, or rapid expert
> intuitive approaches out there who *don't* believe we're doing a half-
> assed or non-optimum job of things. I really don't like the term
> "designer-centric design" either, because design is always "solution-
> centric" and hopefully wholistic, integrated, and multi-dimensional.
>
> I agree this is a very important discussion, and you did a very good thingto start it
> I'm particularly glad that you quoted Brenda Laurel. Let's examine
> how she constructs that quote. First off, she starts off by framing a
> particular type of non-research-based design, as a "pernicious
> folly." Then she cleverly escapes the, "But what about these
> successful examples" question by boxing it into the ,"Yeah, well
> there are a few, "exceedingly rare* individuals argument. The "rest
> of us" tagline really underscores the attempt to distance the reader
> for any hope that they might also develop some effective, intuitive,
> and valuable judgement for use in a large range of situations calling
> for it.
The dismissal of this approach is surely a problem. And I can see (and I
think it is clear) where it started: for many years, a lot of design has
been done by non-professionals or unexperienced designers. And most of the
times, in a hurry and with not too much concern for the user. This lead to
bad design in a huge number of situations. And for the benefit of the
products and the users, it had to be somehow discouraged on a large scale.
Unfortunately, it also dismissed the success stories: when things are done
in a hurry because there is no other way, when decisions are made without
much user research because there are no resources for user research, and so
on, and still the products can succeed - because they are made by people who
really know what they're doing - experts.
...Maybe we should make here a parallel with "Agile Development", and simply
start accepting that design is done in the real world, and not an ideal one:
user-research is good, but there might just not be the resources to do it;
there will always be deadlines; we will always have programmers that want to
make their life easier; we will always have stake-holders who just want
'this feature'; products have to make money to be successful etc. We are
designing under a great number of constraints. We cannot pretend they aren't
there, we have to accept them. Only after accepting them, we can start to
ask ourselves: Now, what can I do to make this a good product?
>
> It's non-UCD/ACD methods and practitioners, in the form of fictional
> strawmen, that continue to be lambasted by the pundits. I, and
> others, would like to see this stop. I'll likely be assailed as
> coming from an egotistical position, but nothing could be further
> from the truth. This is not about any one particular designer's
> approach or methods, but more an appeal on behalf of the many single
> and small team design efforts out there that innovate and improve
> user experiences a great deal with very little resources, or time.
Thank you, in their behalf! :)
I argue that *many, many* more designers could learn to be excellent
> intuitive designers, capable of bringing successful solutions to a
> much larger set of products, systems, and services.
>
> But by throwing around statements such as the one you quote above,
> there are many young designers that will never take bold steps.
> They'll never understand that they can indeed, with careful thought
> and insights (and I argue exposure to other designers that may mentor
> them) learn to hone their intuition. Start small on small products
> and work up from there. Take big risks on small projects. Then take
> big risks on larger projects.
I like to read this kind of statements every now and then. They are both
encouraging and motivating.
> No practitioner I'm aware of would make the ludicrous charge that
> research is easy, and that's part of my point. Nobody's attacking or
> denigrating UCD or ACD, etc.. What I, and others who work in these
> sole proprietorship and small team situations are asking is that we
> and our approaches not be denigrated, sidelined, explained away as
> "extremely rare," or most offensively of all - called "easy."
Bot it is more fun, isn't it? At least for me it is, I admit it. I like to
design more than I like to research. I like to create products more than
create personas. I like to discover solutions. Maybe that's what makes
research seem more difficult to some of us. Because it's simply not so fun.
Your teams work day and night on those projects, right? But do they like it?
They love it! Do I have flow when I work on personas? Well, not always. Do I
have flow when I try to design solutions? Hell, I could stay thinking all
day long.
...Maybe that't the difference. And maybe Dan is just trying to say that
going straight to design is a shortcut we can afford when we know what we
are doing. A shortcut that helps us stay in time and in budget. And again,
maybe it's the wording that caused the problem.
But that's just my opinion.
I can assure you, Dan, that the methods you describe are not the only
> "damn hard work" out there in the Interaction Design field. This
> attitude is primarily why I feel the urge not to attack the methods
> you advocate, but rather stand up for those you claim, wrongly, are
> "easy" and others claim, even more wrongly, are "pernicious folly."
>
>
> Jim
>
> James Leftwich, IDSA
> Orbit Interaction
> Palo Alto, California 94301
> USA
> http://www.orbitnet.com
> jleft@...
> (650) 387-2550 mobile
> ________________________________________________________________
> Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!
> To post to this list ....... discuss@...
> List Guidelines ............ http://listguide.ixda.org/
> List Help .................. http://listhelp.ixda.org/
> (Un)Subscription Options ... http://subscription-options.ixda.org/
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> Questions .................. lists@...
> Home ....................... http://ixda.org/
> Resource Library ........... http://resources.ixda.org
>
Sebi
--
Sergiu Sebastian Tauciuc
http://www.sergiutauciuc.ro/en/
________________________________________________________________
Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!
To post to this list ....... discuss@...
List Guidelines ............ http://listguide.ixda.org/
List Help .................. http://listhelp.ixda.org/
(Un)Subscription Options ... http://subscription-options.ixda.org/
Announcements List ......... http://subscribe-announce.ixda.org/
Questions .................. lists@...
Home ....................... http://ixda.org/
Resource Library ........... http://resources.ixda.org
On 10/19/06, James Leftwich, IDSA <jleft@...> wrote:
>
> [Please voluntarily trim replies to include only relevant quoted
> material.]
>
>
> I greatly appreciate this spirited discussion. It's an important
> one. And I have the utmost respect for opposing points of view,
> though there are some aspects that I strongly, and historically,
> disagreed with, and I rarely see opposition rising to meet statements
> of some of the more visible pundits in the field of user experience
> and Interaction Design. So I will do it to represent the many ad
> hoc, solitary, small team with no time or budget, or rapid expert
> intuitive approaches out there who *don't* believe we're doing a half-
> assed or non-optimum job of things. I really don't like the term
> "designer-centric design" either, because design is always "solution-
> centric" and hopefully wholistic, integrated, and multi-dimensional.
>
> I agree this is a very important discussion, and you did a very good thing
> I'm particularly glad that you quoted Brenda Laurel. Let's examine
> how she constructs that quote. First off, she starts off by framing a
> particular type of non-research-based design, as a "pernicious
> folly." Then she cleverly escapes the, "But what about these
> successful examples" question by boxing it into the ,"Yeah, well
> there are a few, "exceedingly rare* individuals argument. The "rest
> of us" tagline really underscores the attempt to distance the reader
> for any hope that they might also develop some effective, intuitive,
> and valuable judgement for use in a large range of situations calling
> for it.
The dismissal of this approach is surely a problem. And I can see (and I
think it is clear) where it started: for many years, a lot of design has
been done by non-professionals or unexperienced designers. And most of the
times, in a hurry and with not too much concern for the user. This lead to
bad design in a huge number of situations. And for the benefit of the
products and the users, it had to be somehow discouraged on a large scale.
Unfortunately, it also dismissed the success stories: when things are done
in a hurry because there is no other way, when decisions are made without
much user research because there are no resources for user research, and so
on, and still the products can succeed - because they are made by people who
really know what they're doing - experts.
...Maybe we should make here a parallel with "Agile Development", and simply
start accepting that design is done in the real world, and not an ideal one:
user-research is good, but there might just not be the resources to do it;
there will always be deadlines; we will always have programmers that want to
make their life easier; we will always have stake-holders who just want
'this feature'; products have to make money to be successful etc. We are
designing under a great number of constraints. We cannot pretend they aren't
there, we have to accept them. Only after accepting them, we can start to
ask ourselves: Now, what can I do to make this a good product?
>
> It's non-UCD/ACD methods and practitioners, in the form of fictional
> strawmen, that continue to be lambasted by the pundits. I, and
> others, would like to see this stop. I'll likely be assailed as
> coming from an egotistical position, but nothing could be further
> from the truth. This is not about any one particular designer's
> approach or methods, but more an appeal on behalf of the many single
> and small team design efforts out there that innovate and improve
> user experiences a great deal with very little resources, or time.
Thank you, in their behalf! :)
I argue that *many, many* more designers could learn to be excellent
> intuitive designers, capable of bringing successful solutions to a
> much larger set of products, systems, and services.
>
> But by throwing around statements such as the one you quote above,
> there are many young designers that will never take bold steps.
> They'll never understand that they can indeed, with careful thought
> and insights (and I argue exposure to other designers that may mentor
> them) learn to hone their intuition. Start small on small products
> and work up from there. Take big risks on small projects. Then take
> big risks on larger projects.
I like to read this kind of statements every now and then. They are both
encouraging and motivating.
> No practitioner I'm aware of would make the ludicrous charge that
> research is easy, and that's part of my point. Nobody's attacking or
> denigrating UCD or ACD, etc.. What I, and others who work in these
> sole proprietorship and small team situations are asking is that we
> and our approaches not be denigrated, sidelined, explained away as
> "extremely rare," or most offensively of all - called "easy."
Bot it is more fun, isn't it? At least for me it is, I admit it. I like to
design more than I like to research. I like to create products more than
create personas. I like to discover solutions. Maybe that's what makes
research seem more difficult to some of us. Because it's simply not so fun.
Your teams work day and night on those projects, right? But do they like it?
They love it! Do I have flow when I work on personas? Well, not always. Do I
have flow when I try to design solutions? Hell, I could stay thinking all
day long.
...Maybe that't the difference. And maybe Dan is just trying to say that
going straight to design is a shortcut we can afford when we know what we
are doing. A shortcut that helps us stay in time and in budget. And again,
maybe it's the wording that caused the problem.
But that's just my opinion.
I can assure you, Dan, that the methods you describe are not the only
> "damn hard work" out there in the Interaction Design field. This
> attitude is primarily why I feel the urge not to attack the methods
> you advocate, but rather stand up for those you claim, wrongly, are
> "easy" and others claim, even more wrongly, are "pernicious folly."
>
>
> Jim
>
> James Leftwich, IDSA
> Orbit Interaction
> Palo Alto, California 94301
> USA
> http://www.orbitnet.com
> jleft@...
> (650) 387-2550 mobile
> ________________________________________________________________
> Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!
> To post to this list ....... discuss@...
> List Guidelines ............ http://listguide.ixda.org/
> List Help .................. http://listhelp.ixda.org/
> (Un)Subscription Options ... http://subscription-options.ixda.org/
> Announcements List ......... http://subscribe-announce.ixda.org/
> Questions .................. lists@...
> Home ....................... http://ixda.org/
> Resource Library ........... http://resources.ixda.org
>
Sebi
--
Sergiu Sebastian Tauciuc
http://www.sergiutauciuc.ro/en/
________________________________________________________________
Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!
To post to this list ....... discuss@...
List Guidelines ............ http://listguide.ixda.org/
List Help .................. http://listhelp.ixda.org/
(Un)Subscription Options ... http://subscription-options.ixda.org/
Announcements List ......... http://subscribe-announce.ixda.org/
Questions .................. lists@...
Home ....................... http://ixda.org/
Resource Library ........... http://resources.ixda.org
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