On Jan 21, 2008, at 11:45 AM, Jim Leftwich wrote: > > No horse has left any barn. I fundamentally disagree with the notion > of a process being *either* user-centric or designer-centric. This is > just so oversimplified as to be misleading. All good design is done > in the service to the product and the end user. And no one process > or approach owns user-centricity.
You are now confusing intent with approach. All good design intends to benefit the user. The differences we're speaking of are the approaches, all of which can be used to create this benefit. "User- centric design" is a technical term to describe a set of methods and a philosophy, not just that the designer intends to help the user. (Duh.) As I have also pointed out in the book and elsewhere, the different approaches can all be used on the same project at different times. I'm agnostic about the approach--all four have their merits and flaws. I know I drift frequently between genius design, UCD, and ACD. I'd argue the best designers are those that can do this sort of shifting between approaches, in fact. Rigid ideology causes you to lose tools in your toolkit. > As for the importance of whether Jakob Nielsen has repeated this > term, well, I would disagree that this means the matter is settled. It's not only Jakob. I was mostly kidding about his using it, although it does signify the term has moved beyond the core community here. The more important point is that the term has been adopted and used by the IxD community. Nothing better has been proposed, codified or adopted. > I suppose I can understand why someone coining a term would like to > see the debate over and done with, but it's not quite that simple. You are free to write your own book and coin your own terms. :) > These debates are going to continue to crop up, as long as > terminology such as "genius design," and "ego-centric" are used > to label individual or small expert team efforts that don't > incorporate what's being labeled "user-centered design." As I stated above, the term UCD implies a core set of methods (generative user research being the core of the core IMHO). This isn't to say that practitioners who use the other approaches don't care about users or serving their needs, just that they don't go about that in a way that is traditionally called user-centered design. Dan ________________________________________________________________ *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
