Out of curiosity, have you or Greg ever practiced agile? Not trying to be a pain, but really would like to hear what your experience was if so.
Also, one of the sponsors of Interaction08, Autodesk, has been designing award winning user experiences in a very complex product space with agile for more than half of a decade. It can work, and it can fail, just like any other process/approach/methodology. They also enjoy a really positive and happy work environment, and have very little turnover. I've had the opportunity to meet & collaborate with Lynn Miller and Desiree Sy - both interaction designers at Autodesk, and they are really doing great design work. What's interesting is that in both of those keynotes, the relationship between designers and engineers was also highlighted. Even when there is time for deconstruction as you mention, that doesn't mean it actually gets built and implemented in the right way. I'm sure this is very different across different types of organizations - boutique design shops vs corporate workplaces comes to mind. My experience with agile has been that if you embrace certain aspects of it, you can really improve that relationship. I've worked in waterfall and I have worked in agile. Quite frankly, each one has its pros and cons. I feel part of our job as designers is to accept that there will be always be less than perfect situations, and learn how to deal with them in innovative and positive ways that result in good user experiences. As a shameless plug, Jim Ungar and I presented on just this Sunday afternoon. I disagree with you that user experiences are not being designed, but just built when it comes to agile. There are ways to do real design in agile - incorporating user research, concept ideation, exploration & critique, and true iteration based on things like usability testing and design leadership. It just requires letting go of some old practices and embracing new ones. Jeff On Mon, 11 Feb 2008 18:06:15, dave malouf <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > At the postmortem dinner for the conference on sunday night. Myself & > Greg Petroff when off on a debate about Agile being good or bad. I > find it interesting that BOTH of our pre-eminent keynotes are both > talking down agile, YET we as a UX community believe it is still > valuable. Yikes! It screams to me the horrible influences we have > been forced to assimilate towards (taking some of Bill's juices and > running with it) around being under the thumb of engineering all > these decades. > > Through the discussion what became clear was that the term > "waterfall" is associated with RUP (or RUP like processes) and for > some reason is equated to "documentation". However, the meaning of > waterfall to me means ... define before build as per Bill's > discussion. Know what you are doing before you green light spending > production dollars. What follows that design period does not need to > be reams of useless and often mindless paper. > > On another point. > I really disagree with this: > > > In fact, one of the core aspects of UX%u2014delivering > > what the users need%u2014can be better assured through > > agile process (IMO) . > > B/c I think it shows a lack of understanding to what UX is all > about--telling a story. A lot of people have already highlighted > "story telling" as a major theme of the conference and I couldn't > agree more, but the way to creatively write a story, or create a > drama, or event, is to do it through deconstruction. I never really > understood what that meant till this conference, and this > conversation, but for now at least, it means for me, that I create a > vision and then deconstruct it through value statements and other > criteria used to make choices. > > The example is ... The theatrical version of a movie vs. a > director's cut. Almost always in process, the director's cut is > made first and then it is cut down to fit the theater. > > If I just build in iterations, there is never a whole, guiding light > or prototype from which I can cut away at. > > It seems that unless there is a distinct design phase where this > visioning process can happen owned by design for design with > collaboration and consultation from engineering and business, we are > NOT *designing* user experiences, but just building them. > > Now, Agile development processes seem GREAT after designs are "green > lighted". There are lots of advantages to engineers in those > processes, but assimilating to them seems like a grave mistake at > this point to me. > > - dave > > > . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . > Posted from the new ixda.org > http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=25686 > > > ________________________________________________________________ > > 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 > ________________________________________________________________ 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
