This is good stuff. If we accept that any well-thought out process ought to be founded on a sound philosophy (or paradigm/model/theory/etc.), why can't UCD be BOTH a philosophy/paradigm as well as the label (rather than definition) for a VARIETY of different processes. Which might beg the question, is there such a thing as Non-User Centered Design? And while NUCD might not be a philosophy, we do know that many designs develop with little concern for the user, or alternatively, are Developer/Designer Centered. Therefore UCD is a justifiable label.
I first encountered the term in the title of Norman and Draper's edited collection of papers, UCSD (a clever title, since Norman was on the faculty of UCSD at the time) two decades ago. I initially sneered at the title since I thought, 'What other kind of systems design could there ever be.' But the more I hung around geeks, the more I realized that being user-centered was the exception rather than the norm among them; at least, even when they believed they were being user-centered, they were, in fact, merely projecting their own personas on to arbitrary users employing 'cold logic'. So, in conclusion, for those who always look the world through user-centered lenses (and this is mostly a personality style issue, in my experience), the term is redundant. And perhaps most IxD practitioners and theoreticians are in fact UC. If so, then the term serves the purpose of at least signaling to the rest of the world of their intent. -- Murli Nagasundaram, Ph.D. http://www.murli.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://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
