In response to the many great observations that Yury Frolov made, I immediately recognize many of those same dynamics and challenges.
There are indeed circumstances and situations that are better suited for RED approaches, and you outlined them nicely. I and my network and colleagues have designed some projects from scratch though, and I'd suggest that tthose projects just represent another type of problem or domain, complete with unique needs, constraints, and opportunities. It's sometimes quite nice to be able to design whole new things from scratch in that it provides opportunities to achieve a great deal of elegant functional and experience integration as well as related aspects such as branding. And I think Yury succeeded in identifying one of the most challenging aspects, which is the longer term extension or buildout of a seed or core design. He identified some of the tools that are used (Style Guides, Templates, Pattern documentation, etc.), but it's true that often a RED team moves on to a new project, and it's left to others to take a design forward. I'd first say that I've seen a great variation in the detail, utility, and ultimately effectiveness of Style Guides and Architecture documentation. These are not always created equal. And good patterns, guides, and templates both make it easier for later designers to both extend a design with more freedom in certain dimensions while more effectively retaining the core pattern consistencies and relationships key to the core interaction patterns. But I'd also point out that if a new core design moves the overall functionality and patterns of usage to a new and improved level (in the case of a revolution), then the subsequent evolution dynamics aside, the product, system, or service can still be much better off. As with all things, we would have to speak about specific cases and the individual issues involved in order to go deeper. But I'd argue that even other methods, when they deal in broad generalities, are also similarly unable to prove their effectiveness. It *always* comes down to the specifics of individual projects in the end. I do like the term "Design Cleanup Team" though. I've had experiences in the past where after an initial project, there would be follow on projects one or two years later. These were often an opportunity to judge effectiveness of the initial work's extension as well as an opportunity to provide further direction and guidance of the overall design. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 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
