> > Point extremely well taken. However, learning from a waiter how to serve > wine is not the same as being a waiter for a number of evenings--which is > what Julian asked about.
Not a great example, obviously, but I thought of it because it was one of the more unusual cases. Other times, I have actually done the job. For example, I actually did the work of a call center employee while working on an intranet app that would mostly benefit the call center. Compare the two approaches ... 1. You watch a call center employee jump from window to window in three different applications, use the company website to look up promotional info, IM his boss to get the answer to an approval question, take lunch orders from the people around him because it's his turn to make the food run, and somehow pay attention to the person on the phone and deliver great customer service at the same time. OR 2. You actually do all these things. I assure you, it looks and feels very different when you're the one with the headset on, trying to pay attention to all these things at once. I actually don't think it is a very practical idea, if tantalizing, to learn > what you need to know by actually doing the job. To really "get" what it is > like to do a certain job by living it, you need to have the background that > you could be hired for it, you'd have to go through the proper training, > and > you'd have to do it long enough to get past the apprentice stage and > experience proficiency--and such things as the boredom that comes from > repetitiveness, the resentment that comes from being closely > supervised/criticized/harassed by customers, the anxiety that comes from > the > possibility that you will be laid off, and so on. And this "doing the job" approach is somehow less practical than typical contextual inquiry? You learn far more doing the job, even as a "tourist", than you do by merely observing others. Of course I don't think someone would "get" interaction design by doing my job for a few days, but here's a short list of things they would find out very quickly: 1. Wireframe software is seriously lacking, and we end up designing some of the same things over and over again. 2. Video conferencing is not what it should be, and using a phone to handle client calls is ridiculous because it limits your ability to use all tools you could be using while on the phone. Sure, there's Skype, but not everyone uses that. 3. It takes a lot of discipline to avoid constantly being interrupted (email, phone, IM, etc.). It can be just as hard to get into the zone while working at home as in the typical office. 4. No matter how big my monitor is, it's not big enough. 5. Daily admin stuff is a huge time sucker. 6. There is a constant pursuit of new ways to get and stay organized so that real work can get done. You could observe me for a few days and learn these things, but if you actually go through the motions, you understand and internalize the pain points better than you ever could by simply watching them. Sure, in some cases, the chore of getting up to speed enough to even be able to do the job, even as a tourist, can be too time-consuming and intensive to justify, but when you can do it, you'll learn a whole lot of things just by going through the act of doing the job, even if you're not qualified to do it. You'll see what situations you have to negotiate as you perform tasks, what decisions have to be made at each step, what actually goes through your mind. -r- ________________________________________________________________ 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
