"Another thing I'd add is that while we may be the owners of our documents, I feel we should be consulting with engineers, design, product, business, etc., during document creation as much as possible. Let expertise reign where appropriate."
Janna, I couldn't agree more. If the programmers can't understand our final deliverables I feel that our process has failed. I am happy to say that we almost never have significant problems in this regard. Our success comes from insisting that the programmers who will be responsible for building the application we design are represented in the design process from the beginning. We insist on participation in workshops, iterative approval processes and rough prototypes. By the time we finish our process the programming team usually knows and understands the design as fully as we do (maybe not quite as fully but close). Designing software apart from programmer input and participation is, in my experience, asking for trouble. 1.) What you design may not be able to be built -- period. 2.) Programmers may have tremendous resistance to the design (which could have been overcome if they were included in the design process). 3.) The design is accepted but suffers the death of a thousand cuts as many "little" changes are deemed necessary during the build process. In my experience, methodical collaboration with the right mix of roles creates a shared, holistic understanding of the project that no amount of exactitude in design deliverables can ever achieve on its own. Joseph Selbie Founder, CEO Tristream Web Application Design http://www.tristream.com ________________________________________________________________ *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://gamma.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://gamma.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://gamma.ixda.org/help
