My take on this is to go back to the simple saying, "Knowledge is Power".
When I work with engineers of any type across any medium, the more technical knowledge I bring to the collaboration the better the project usually goes. There is that balance though of becoming that person who "knows enough to be dangerous." What I like about knowing about technology is that I can predict the issues and engage engineers to design around them with me. It aids in collaboration in so far as I have very clear points where I can engage. I also like it when I can look an engineer straight in the eye and just know they are full-of-it and are coming up withe excuses to change the design. They are trying to take advantage of my lack of knowledge and it backfires on them. Having moved from one medium (web) to another medium (embedded) recently, I can tell you I really lost my footing in this regard. Now I just engage a lot more often and go to those engineers whom are as interested in good design as I am (and they do exist). The main problem I see with this, is that there are more technologies when performing as an IxD than I think any single human should be able to keep tabs on. In my project alone there are 3 levels of software engineering (embedded, platform, and thin client), electrical engineering and mechanical engineering that I have to deal with at various depths of fidelity. Saying that I should have to take a class in all of these to communicate with any of my peers feels, well ridiculous! I'm all for learning and believe that any IxD worth his salt should have coded in JavaScript or ActionScript at least once in their lives at a production level, but there are limits here. -- dave . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=28015 ________________________________________________________________ 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
