[I sent this earlier today and apparently left off the ixda list as a cc. Jared, perhaps you haven't seen it either.]
Jared, Allow me to apologize. My tone has been confrontational rather than seeking to find common ground. But you got my hackles up when you, not once, but twice in the same posting, referred to my opinions as "a load of crap". I regret tossing the same phrase back at you with a little added sarcasm -- tit for tat rarely gets us anywhere. I also regret that my comments were construed as an attack on, or lack of appreciation for, usability, its practices or practitioners. What I was trying to do, admittedly with more heat than was helpful, was champion the role of the designer, which I think is tending to be diminished by the current ascension of usability. I don't however, see it as a zero sum game. To champion the role of the designer does not imply criticism of the role of usability or usability practitioners. Both are necessary -- and the better they both are, the better the outcome. In my humble opinion however, the people who are really good at one, are rarely really good at the other (design and usability). The more of a mix of skills and talents in these domains that someone brings to the process, the better it is for the whole. But I've yet to meet someone who really excels at both. Perhaps it is only because I pushed you too hard, but I came away with the impression that you don't feel there is that much difference between the two roles, really. It sounded as if you thought it was more a matter of the skills and training in one's toolkit -- and not, as I believe, the result of significant differences in temperament. You might be interested in a learning styles survey I conducted at Tristream years ago. A major component of the survey was to discover how people tended to organize information and was based on a system usually referred to as GASC -- short for Global, Abstract, Sequential, Concrete. What I found was remarkably consistent. The people who were the best interaction designers were consistently Global/Concrete in their approach to organizing information. They needed to start with a global perspective and then they could take it down to concrete form. The people who were the best at analysis and critique were Concrete/Sequential, they needed to start with a concrete perspective and then apply sequential processes to analyze it. One of the results of this survey was that we became more conscious of making sure any teams assigned to projects had a good mix of both -- but it was always the Global/Concrete person that took the lead in designing solutions. It was also always the Global/Concrete person who became frustrated most easily with process, process, process, and they often needed to come in early, or work at home, so that they had the space to be creative. The Global/Concrete interaction designer was also easily frustrated by "specific" design solutions suggested in response to iterative reviews or user testing. They would rather hear what the nature of the problem was and then go and design a solution -- because the specific solutions presented rarely meshed well with the overall, global design. I hope that helps clarify my point of view. If not, let us, as you already suggested, agree to disagree. I for one have to get back to work :). I hope you get a nice break for the holidays. Respectfully, 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://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
