I've been thinking about this conversation quite a bit overnight. My perspective as a life-long musician:
Many musicians learn Bach pieces on their instruments. At any one moment, there may be thousands of musicians practicing Bach pieces on our planet. For all I know, you're reading this on your iPhone in an elevator where Bach is playing over the speaker. The music is well-known, playable, practically a commodity. So how was I to know that Janos Starker in recital, playing Bach unaccompanied on a cello, would carve a permanent wound in my soul? I had no idea that anyone could push through the resistance in that familiar material to reach such a place. We, as interaction designers, don't often push through our material resistance. Our performances are more like musicians at weddings: show up on time, wear nice clothes, don't play too loud, play what the bride requests. The wedding party isn't looking for any more emotion - they've got plenty. They want Wedding Bach, not Starker Bach. Or perhaps we're more like the road-builders of our design world: not too many potholes? nice and smooth? good clear signage? won't wear out too soon? Ship It! That's a usable road! Right now, at this stage of our evolution, our materials resist us powerfully. Think quickly of how many rich web applications work well in all different browsers and mobile devices, are powerful enough to grow into but instinctive enough to grasp without reading instructions, and are accessible to disabled users? I'm sorry, but somewhere there will be a compromise to technical capabilities, schedule, finance, usability, beauty. There are levels that we can aspire to, but we will need to build our craft and advance our materials. Because right now our materials are crude, brittle, and frustrating compared to what musicians have to work with. Or even road-builders, who every so often create a bridge of such great beauty that you want to do a U-turn and cross it again a couple more times. I for one am very pleased that we have this community that celebrates the good roads and pushes through the materials, little by little, as we can. It may be a while before we reach that happy place on the far side. But I follow these conversations, hoping for glimpses, and am happy to celebrate small steps in the right direction. Michael Micheletti On Wed, Aug 27, 2008 at 12:25 PM, David Malouf <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > ... > But back to "resistance". > > I think people have been speaking of great examples in other areas, > but I think at the crux of the issue (as Matt sorta alludes to) is > what is our Craft? Are we even craft people, or are we simply the > directors of craft people? (oh and not we in the sense of "my job", > but as interaction design -- ers in the pure sense. Many of us wear > multiple hats and do a ton of craft. > ________________________________________________________________ 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
