On Dec 18, 2007, at 6:26 PM, Joseph Selbie wrote: > If a designer isn't more enlightened about good design than a > usability > practitioner, than I would have to say they probably shouldn't be > designers. > I'm not sure why this has to sound like it would be insulting to > usability > practitioners. Designing is a different process than evaluation. > > Clearly, both designers and usability practitioners have to > understand the > principles of what makes a site, or software or product usable, but > this > doesn't mean that the person who is the usability specialist would > be an > equally good designer.
With all due respect, let me say this: This is just a load of crap. Good design is an end result that is the product of the work of a team. To produce good design, all members of the team need an almost equal understanding of good design. Interaction designers will know how they contribute to that goal, as will visual designers, but they won't necessarily have cross-over skills. Of course, designing is a different process than evaluation. In fact, I defy you to tell me what the "process of design" is, particularly, as it leads to the predictable and reliable creation of good designs. Designing is not a unified, singular process. It's stylistic. It takes a lot of different components. It requires a specific type of culture to do well. It thrives in certain contexts and fails in others. It involves skills from all over the organization. (http:// tinyurl.com/2wyjj4) Even the best organizations, have tremendous trouble doing it predictably (Apple's iPhone vs. Apple TV -- both announced on the same day and produced in the same culture, but have very different results). Unless you're a one-person company, more than one person contributes to the final design. I contend that all the members on the team have to have an equal enlightenment about good design (and about how their individual skills and talents will contribute to that good design) for a good design to result. > I will also say (clearly opening myself to heated disagreement) that > designing something is much more difficult than evaluating and > incrementally > improving something already established. It requires a holistic > appreciation > of many factors. And it takes talent -- which is not simply the sum > of all > the skills and experiences the designer has picked up over the > years -- it > is more than that. *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. I'm glad you recognize this is clearly opening yourself up to a heated disagreement because, again with all due respect, this too is crap. There is virtually nothing in this statement that is accurate. If you believe that designing something is more difficult than evaluating something, (a) you've probably never seriously evaluated anything and (b) you probably should be an evaluator, since design seems so difficult to you. Try being at the leading edge of evaluation for 25+ years and then tell me how difficult it is. Doing a quality job at evaluation is extremely challenging for even the most talented in the field. I think your implication that usability practice is about "evaluating and incrementally improving something already established" shows misses what good usability practice bring to the design process. Good usability practice informs the team by providing insights into the team's decision making process, thereby enhancing the quality of the resulting design. Your definition of talent is also incorrect. Talent, by most behavioral definitions, is not the sum of all skills and experiences, which are separate from talent. Talent is an innate capability. You can have two people with the exact same skills (which are learned) and experiences, yet if one is more talented, you'll see results. That's why David Ortiz plays baseball very differently than Alex Rodriguez. Both have almost equivalent skills (as does every major league player) and very similar experiences, but very different talents. Designing is not any more an artistic endeavor than usability practice. And good design employs as much "science" as good evaluation does. Of course, these are just my opinions and based purely on my experience doing research and evaluation the field of design for almost 30 years. It's likely I'm not enlightened enough to understand how it's really done, so please assess the validity of my comments accordingly. Jared ________________________________________________________________ *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
