Brian, you might have already hinted yourself at an IMHO highly possible source of your troubles by labeling your process as 'supposedly agile' etc. Apart from the regular potential pitfalls of agile processes[1]: an 'agile' process that isn't will consequently in most cases inherit the type of problems that agility is supposed to solve. If your management is currently not sufficiently committed to get this fixed, you are trying to tune the wrong set of screws when just looking at the design process: The real problem could quite well be sitting one stage above... (and needs to be dealt with _there_).
> What is your design workflow? Do you do low-res mockups first, or > start with an existing design? Personally, I am most often concerned more with concept/product development/ideation/etc. Hence starting with an existing design is rarely an option at this stage. Sorry, if I might not be too helpful here. > (This is in the context of creating a > new application to fit into an existing suite of apps, so the visual > style is already set) Erm... visual style ≠ design ;-) But how about already established (and well working!) behavioural patterns, affordances (ok, those are often visual), ...? > How long does your design process take? Always different. Highly depends on budget, deadlines, priorities, people(!), ... > Are they at every design review, or do you work until > you feel the design is "ready" before you present it? Depends on the ability of the stakeholder to deal with the low-res stage, i.e. imaginative skills, design process savvyness, etc. Some worst case people just don't get it until you have already a quite refined prototype (and then get stuck on discussing really minor details instead of stuff that matters *sigh*). This type is often hard to deal with (at least for me). The more grateful types are much better able to cope with iteratively exploring a possibility space, and may provide good feedback already at less ready/refined stages. And in case of a stakeholder that is imaginative, understanding, and committed, showing and discussing things as early and often as possible IMHO really pays and may evolve into a heavily inspiring and rewarding mental ping-pong incl. according results. At least for the more stimulation-seeking types amongst us. :-) YMMV - there are enough people who prefer to work a little bit more secluded until they feel safe to present something more 'ready' (and do better this way). > Do you find your requirements change at all during this process? Yes, of course. Though in agile, requirements should actually never change *within* an iteration, only *between* iterations. In other words: design work normally feeds the backlog (or an respective equivalent). If management is not able to restrain the urge to withhold new requirements until the next iteration, the whole process starts to go awry. Which can get quite costly in terms of momentum, time, motivation, quality, ... (and money). (Mind you, I don't hold the opinion that agility is an all-or-nothing type of game. IMHO it is quite possible to have just _some_ agile components and do well with them. Provided: sufficient awareness of the respective whats and _whys_.) > I think the solution is to have design involved sooner in the > process, in the business requirements phase, AB. SO. LUTE. LY. (Though this probably will still not solve the problems your organisation might have with somehow half-baked/half-minded agility.) HTH. Cheers, Sascha -- [1] In my experience design in an agile environment should i.e. strive to be at least one step/sprint/... ahead of development and be able to provide not only screens but, much more important, a sturdy, flexible conceptual/behavioural/visual framework. [see Sahra's comment above, taking the same line] ________________________________________________________________ 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
