Hi William,
I work as a contractor at NASA and have also spent some years on DHS
projects in the past. As far as I know, it's quite rare to find
positions marked with this specific career goal.
At NASA it's not titled "Interaction Design" per se, rather, Human
Factors. NASA has done a tremendous amount of work researching how
humans interact with machines since it's inception as an organization
- and since the digital age (which they helped to create) has
overtaken analog, I would agree they are behind industry, but not
behind the curve. They employ many traditional methods of IxD and I
if given the right financial climate, are poised to have a
renaissance in this area. Much of Human Factors has been based in the
psychology study area, but more and more we are impressing the bigger
picture of interaction.
For instance, in the arenas of FAA, Aeronautics and Space,
prototyping and critique of inherently complex software interfaces
has become a huge time saver. That need has pulled IxD along for the
ride. The need to visualize before deployment has researchers asking
an important question: "Can this [software/hardware] look and
function more effectively?" and "Who knows how to do that?".. San
Jose State, CMU and others have been offering programs that work with
NASA for some time.
That said, I honestly don't know of anyone else at NASA or DHS doing
IxD directly. Industrial Design, Graphic Design, Web Design and the
like - yes... IxD, no. It's a little lonely at times, but exciting in
terms of the huge possibility for improvement.
I'd be happy to talk about starting a grass roots effort in this area
and even creating a proposal. In all honestly, the financial and
changing political climate makes this a bad time to pitch ideas. Not
a bad idea to get *ready* to pitch ideas and prepare for a new
administration though. In my admittedly limited estimation, such an
effort would require a big commitment, perhaps even a big sacrifice
to achieve. On the other hand, my parents always told me to be
careful what I asked for... NASA has been an amazing experience, and
I've been pleased at the level of progress made in my group(s). In
this case, your tax dollars are going to a worthy task. :)
Best,
-Dan
------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
Dan Peknik, Industrial/Interaction Design
NASA Ames Research Center * Bay Area, California
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--
On Oct 10, 2008, at 11:42 AM, William Brall wrote:
Howdy everyone,
I've spent my career working through various government agencies -
NASA, DOD - and one of the most nerve-racking aspects of software
development in here is how far they lag behind the curve. It is to
the point where almost all of the people I interact with haven't
the slightest inkling of what IxD is. Sometimes they don't even ask
the bad questions like, "Do you mean designing button graphics and
such?" Software, especially web software in the government sector
is so remarkably bad that they actually have internal marketing
campaigns inside an organization to promote new sub-sections of
their vast web-presences.
Recently, I attended the AUSA conference to help promote Army.mil
and the army CMS CORE, and almost everyone who came to our booth
assumed we were AKO (Army Knowledge Online) which is the Army's
Intranet.
My question here is two-fold. Are there any other IxDs who work in
government, as IxDs or stubbornly supporting IxD while under other
titles, and if there are, what are your thoughts on how to help the
government at large to embrace IxD?
Perhaps if we can band together, in-government-IxDs and out, we can
effect some change. Or perhaps my own time working for the
government (as a contractor) has been unique. I hope it has been, I
fear it has not.
Thoughts?
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