In response to Dave Malouf's questions (Part 2 of 3): Q: If Adaptive Path and Cooper are poster children for the UCD design practice today (yes, I know there are many others), who would you point to besides yourself of designers or studios worth looking at connecting with to find out more about R.E.D?
A: I know primarily about the work done by designers I've known and/or worked with over the past twenty-five years. The designers I learned the most from in the 1980s were Norm Cox and Alan Mandler. I've known a number of engineers that were actually very good designers in the domains in which they worked as well. Steve Doss of Jampaq, who's designed and programmed some pretty nice mobile games that have been popular. He and I worked together at Pacific Consultants several years back, which was a 130-person consulting group (later acquired and absorbed) on a number of complex projects ranging from the U.S. Army's Land Warrior system to handheld medical devices. He and I recently created the SeeqPod Mobile application for Windows Mobile with this approach. Another veteran designer that comes to mind is Peter Muller of Interform. Peter was one of Frogdesign's earliest people where he was a V.P. Peter's very much an accomplished generalist designer who's taken on all the aspects of whole product development from I.D. to interaction and branding, and would be an example of the kind of approach I've described. I would expect that a lot of independent designers and small consulting groups would resonate with the idea of building up experience towards tackling diverse and complex design projects. First perhaps out of necessity, but eventually because of the capabilities they've gained over time. Part of my reason for putting the idea of RED out there is to create a seed around which a diversity of experiences and approaches can be discussed. Not as flawed, unfortunate, or fallback approaches, but as the way they practice design. This is not uncommon among designers and architects, however it is often not widely discussed and examined, due to the individuality of practices and effort required to put these experiences in an examinable and discussable form. I further think that there may indeed be two valid ways of defining and understanding the generalized rapid, non-structured / less up-front research approach - One may indeed be more like what Dan is describing - a reluctant fallback reality that the designer would really rather have the opportunity to apply more involved research and development processes to, but can't (for lack of time, resources, etc.), and a second one (which is more what I'm describing) which is purposefully pursuing the projects that can only be effectively addressed (time and resource-wise) using the RED approach. In the latter, the approach is not a fallback option, but a specific approach where the designer is seeking to gain over time the ability to provide the best, most thorough, and most successful design in the shortest period of time and with the least cost to the client/corporation possible. This approach, like the unique skills and training of Special Forces soldiers, then is fundamentally different from that of regular infantry. RED, in this way, is the way of life, and capable of very successful outcomes (though often at high personal effort costs on the part of the RED designers in terms of hours/week and difficulty of the project). This is why RED is not for everyone. Just as Alpine Climbing style (in the way Reinhold Messner and Peter Haebler practiced it by climbing the world's highest peaks without oxygen or fixed ropes) is not for every climber that would rather have an army of Sherpas along with them, a series of semi-permanent encampments, and aluminum ladders and fixed ropes aiding them in reaching the summit. The point is that the Alpine Climbing style is a valid approach on its own if practiced and pursued competently, not a fallback style inferior to other methods. Q: Are there any internal corporate design studios today working from the perspective of R.E.D.? A: We are all familiar with the anecdotes about Apple, though there's few specifics out there (that I'm aware of) regarding their approach and experience. I'm not personally that familiar with many internal corporate design studios, other than those that have existed in companies that I and my colleagues have consulted to. Most of those didn't have the experience or structure to practice RED, though most struck me as having the capability of doing so, if they were differently structured and empowered. It's important to bear in mind how powerfully the dogmatic messages of the design field over the past twenty years have shaped the attitudes of designers (particularly corporate and organizationally-oriented designers) towards what's accepted as possible and what's not. To paraphrase an old saying, "Free your mind and your design skills will follow." . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=37626 ________________________________________________________________ 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
