>But being first to the marketplace, means you designed your product
without the benefit of
> examining, critiquing and learning from existing products and the
> reactions of users to them

Not completely, Even in the most bleeding edge, there are very few
designs that aren't built out of simpler existing interaction
parts/patterns (I call flows, as it's like a workflow but also implies
the flow state in the user when carried out effectively).

iXD is particularly challenging as it's success isn't as quantifiable
as other fields. Good design just 'feel's right, and in the flow state
people aren't paying attention and therefore can't describe it. I work
in a company know where people desire it's end goals, but don't know
the first thing about what it is that I'm doing or is called, .
Especially in cross media, going from one site, to another, to a
download to an install, to a first run etc. They actually think
creative/graphical design + marketing driven, instead of user flows.

After spending about 10 years designing applications I've come to the
conclusion that most pipelines are setup completely wrong.   In
creative agencies they have graphic design be the primary. In tech
companies the tech's become the lead, in business lead it's about
feature competitiveness. Which leads to either super rich designs that
are beautiful to look at but typically keyholed with a completely
unuseable scrollbar, or a super complicated product that makes perfect
sense to the designer..but doesn't reflect any customer. Or features
for the sake of competitive comparions rather than what features
people may actually the market's need...while I know Photoshop+Word,
honestly I find paint and notepad more useful on a normal basis.

Just as it's silly to organize a banquet until one know how many
people are coming, it's silly to design graphics prior to getting
wireframes solid, and that can't happen without understanding the
interactives (that which is hidden in time and doesn't far well on
paper), and the dimensionality of the underlying data (requiring
IA...another field that most companies don't know they need on
projects).
________________________________________________________________
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