> *Good* designers are, in fact, more enlightened about > good design than *good* usability practitioners and it is that indefinable > something that separates art from science that makes it so.
Hmmmm. Not all of us live in that dichotomous world that divides art from science. We may have to agree to disagree, if our perceptions about that are so different. It seems you assume that a designer can't be a usability practitioner, and I think he or she must be both to be good at either one. I perceive usability and design as complementary considerations that combine to yield varying degrees of satisfaction in user experience. It sounds like your definition of a usability practitioner is one who, like Jakob Nielsen, only assesses the work of others and designs nothing himself. Or one engaged in the metrics of usability. Am I interpreting you correctly, Joseph? I don't meant to be contentious at all, only to understand your perspective. Evaluating the usability of design -- we're talking interaction design, right? not something painted on afterward or applied as a skin? -- is a rightful part of the design process, and many factors argue for its integration long before a prototype is presented for testing. Similarly, it makes no sense to ignore accessibility considerations from the start. Accessibility and usability are hard to separate anyway. Good design doesn't need to be retrofitted with anything, because it's designed with all essential criteria in mind from the beginning. Of course, these are ideals and our real-world experience has to make allowances for all kinds of circumstances. But given the opportunity to do it right, my own life experience with everything from fixing cars to fixing websites tells me that it's very hard to go back in and retrofit usability when it was not considered important at the outset or at other points in the design process. Regards, Jeff Seager _________________________________________________________________ Get the power of Windows + Web with the new Windows Live. http://www.windowslive.com?ocid=TXT_TAGHM_Wave2_powerofwindows_122007 ________________________________________________________________ *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
