On Jul 4, 2009, at 4:23 PM, Russell Wilson wrote:
I currently lead the design of network performance mgt software
applications at my company. I have also designed countless
applications in the past that have nothing to do with network perf
mgt. And I have designed several websites for small businesses.
But what does that have to do with anything??? This has nothing to
do with the company I work for. And why are you so hung up on the
word "software"? Do you think what you do is exactly the same as
what an automotive designer does? Do you think there are any
distinctions?
I don't need an elevator pitch nor a cocktail party one-liner
(although I do like your scenario). I'm really interested in how
people in our field of design characterize what they do.
I guess I'm hung up on the prototype you proposed in your initial post:
At the end of a recent interview, the candidate asked me “What is
software
design to you?” I can probably come up with a thousand different
answers
but the one that popped into my mind immediately that day was
“*software
design is making the ordinary extraordinary*.”
Okay, so maybe it won’t get me a mention in Businessweek, but what I
was
trying to capture and communicate was that software design in
particular is
largely about taking unglamorous tools and making them functionally
robust
and efficient, rewarding to use, and aesthetically pleasing.
"...making the ordinary extraordinary" seems very generic to me,
whereas "software design" seems fairly specific. (I hang out, because
of my son's profession, with a lot of magicians and special effects
artists these days. Those guys think they've cornered the market on
'making the ordinary extraordinary'. And I find it hard to believe
that Ferrari's designers don't think they are 'making the ordinary
extraordinary.' Likewise, there ain't nothing ordinary about this
$2.1m Bugatti: http://is.gd/1nB3s )
I guess part of my fixation on "software" is that that seems more and
more irrelevant these days. If you were getting the exact same
behaviors from hardware or service, would it matter that it's software
design? Is software where you want to pigeonhole your design skills?
If there is a useful answer to this question (and, like so many of the
"what are we?" questions that regularly appear on this list, I'm once
again doubtful there is), I think it has to match the specificity of
the question.
Therefore, Marc's answer of "arranging code to perform a function on a
computer" is the best answer I've seen so far, but my sense is that it
wasn't what you were looking for.
Jared
________________________________________________________________
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
