I totally agree... involved them early. And... not just the
engineers... get one or two people from every stakeholder's department,
and then some, involved as early as possible, in as many stages as
possible. By the time you go to launch, everyone has had a hand in the
product and feels some level of ownership, making the next project even
easier.
Matt L. wrote:
Unfortunately, there is a strong us-vs-them mentality among engineers.
There's also a resistance to accept aesthetics as relevant to a
product's success. Part of this is due to the misconception that
"because I can write UI code, I can also design it adequately."
Engineers tend to assemble UIs sequentially--they see the process as
adding one widget at a time until paths exist to each
software/hardware feature. The concept of envisioning/visualizing
the full, final product ahead of time is foreign to most.
I get a lot of funny looks when I focus on pixel-perfect accuracy
when designing UIs-- but folks are always impressed with the
refinement of the final product.
Engaging your engineering counterparts in the early stages of a
design/redesign process may help:
** involve them in creating paper prototypes
** give constructive feedback for their work (not just "this looks
wrong/bad/confusing"... you know why it's a poor choice, but they
may not)
** cite real-world examples (web sites, software products, etc.) when
explaining your design choices
Good luck!
Matt L.
Software Engineer
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Posted from the new ixda.org
http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=37605
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