Good stuff Christina.

For me, this is where I tend to wonder a bit outside of what others consider proper 'design' conversation... finding and navigating that definitive line between the design criteria/strategy... and the process of getting design done and done well within and organization/ client relationship. This is something that account management often handles... but it is a huge issue for many designers. It is (and as Bill Buxton noted and Ixda08) the largest are of concentration and attention in my daily job. Chris Conely addresses it in his article "design in hostile territory".

As many of us are working hard to elevate design as a practice within the corporate environment... this sort of stuff is quite valuable (and should be considered a critical priority for the Ixda).

Mark


On Jan 5, 2009, at 10:06 AM, Christina Wodtke wrote:

I have a section in my 2nd edition on what you need to know about business needs and your business model, and how that affects your choices. I agree
that it is increasingly important (especially in our current economic
climate) for designers to understand their role in the business.

the long and short of my thinking is, if you know what behaviors you need your uses to accomplish to meet business goals, you can model environments
that promote those behaviors.  That sounds simple, but really it means
taking apart the business model so you under stand the value of each
accomplishment-- registration, check out, saving, preferences, sharing -- in terms of core business goals -- retention, revenue, activity. Then you map that on to where and how you spend your precious design time, and onto the
actual interface. This is the single most important thing an IxD can
contribute to the process.

This is actually more tactics to get to strategy-- strategy is set at the highest levels, hopefully. However, tactics is where strategy is realized or
fails-- don't elittle it!

That said, if an IxD both understands the major business goals by looking at the company and at companies in the sector and can speak insightfully to the challenges faced by the business, s/he may well find herself shaping the
strategy as well as the tactics.

I'll be giving a workshop on just this topic at nform's web strategy
conference. if you can't make it, I bet they'll let me post slides....

On Sun, Jan 4, 2009 at 10:43 AM, Dan Saffer <[email protected]> wrote:

I'm starting a revision of my book Designing for Interaction.

<http://www.designingforinteraction.com>

In the second edition, I'd like to include a chapter on Strategy, that is:
how to decide WHAT should be designed and WHY.

So when I ask, what should interaction designers know about strategy? You
respond...




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