For me, the work is broken down a little differently. (I work at InContext Design and so use the Contextual Design methodology created by Holtzblatt and Beyer). Using this methodology, the process is broken more into Research and Consolidation (or synthesis), with analysis being part of Research.
The Research phase consists of gathering information: we talk to the client and other stakeholders to understand the business needs and technical constraints, and we do Contextual Inquiry interviews with users. As part of this Research phase we have an interpretation session after each interview%u2014this is our analysis. We recount the interview and capture the details that are relevant to our focus. This includes capturing notes to later build an affinity diagram, and visually sketch out other relevant models (sequence, flow, physical, etc.). We do this so everyone on the team can have a shared understanding about what happened during the interview. For me, this analysis is just part of the research%u2014but it is separate from synthesis as Steve initially suggested. After enough interviews are completed, we then consolidate each model across all users. Using our process, we take each individual sketch and combine them to create new consolidated sketches. This is where the synthesis takes place and you begin to see the larger picture of the work across all the users. The sketching that we do in these phases is different than the sketching that Brad Nunnally discussed, but similar to what Dave Malouf raised. In these phases, we use sketches to understand the data and to share and communicate that understanding to the team and eventually to the client. (Yes, the sketching here is synthetic, but that's not the main purpose.) We don't sketch solutions until consolidation is done and we have a full picture of the work across the user population. Once into the design phase though, I agree wholeheartedly that designers should be sketching their ideas. We have a saying, "If nothing is being captured, then you are just talking in the air." Without a shared representation, it's hard to build a shared understanding and make a decision. Personally, I find it very difficult to even think about design without sketching. I suspect that our process may be different than most. If so, I'd be curious to hear how other processes differ in terms of research, analysis, and synthesis. David Rondeau Design Chair Twitter: dbrondeau . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=40670 ________________________________________________________________ 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
