Jared your points reflect a conversation we often have here at Clearleft. We say we do UCD, but ask ourselves do we really do ACD? I reckon the answer is both. Or more particularly we do ACD with a UCD wrapper. That is to say we do user research and personas, but only enough to give useful context for the subsequent ACD.
So the research and persona development is activity-focused. It's used to determine the activities that need to be designed and provides the settings in which that activity might occur. In your example of a photo sharing site, one activity would almost certainly be to upload a photo. Our research and personas would indicate whether users would be happy uploading one photo at a time or whether there should be a batch (instead or as well). It may even identify that uploading is not viable for the majority of users, and that an alternative solution would need to be developed. The point is that the UCD is limited to informing the ACD, thus avoiding dogmatic processes and freeing us to be able to choose the most appropriate tools to the job at hand. [Expanded upon at http://clagnut.com/blog/2208/] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=35466 ________________________________________________________________ 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
