Todd makes a great point. The inclusion of the user is really an afterthought in any Agile discussions I've witnessed or been a part of. I understand that Jeff Patton (amongst others) has been moving in this direction, but I am unsure just how far and how successfully.
It's important to differentiate from a language point of view. When they speak of the customer in the Agile world, they don't always seem to mean the 'user'. Lastly, when those objecting to UCD launch into a conversation, they seem to narrow the scope of UCD to a specific process. I would put forth that most people advocating UCD are no longer talking about a specific or narrowly defined process. In fact they are not talking about a process at all. What they are talking about is a general philosophy where by the user, is the central focus of the design work. Not the technology, and not the business goals - those come later or are secondary. It's centered around the user because filling a need or want in the market place... and matching the solution to that need is core to the product's success in the marketplace. If you believe that the user or the consumer is not core to everything being worked on at Apple you are absolutely out of your mind. Yes, there are distribution channels where the person the specs the solution... the person that makes the purchase... are not the end user. But this is a sales and marketing consideration, and a convoluted way to design products and services. The user... and by that I mean the person that will ultimately be using the product (- sigh -) is the thing designers need to understand first. Otherwise its all a crap shoot. Mark . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=45169 ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
