On Aug 29, 2009, at 8:03 PM, J. Ambrose Little wrote:
Look, I'm here because it seems pretty obvious to me that the best
way to
make software better is through a focus on people *and* good design.
The way to make better software is through a focus on your customers,
a good deal of top-notch engineering, good design to be married with
that engineering, and an ability to market and sell the product.
That's the whole point: It's not about just users. It's about all of
it, and to drop out any semblance of engineering and business
activities or to focus engineering and business on nothing but users
makes for a poorer product.
Did page rank come from analyzing users wants or needs? There's plenty
of technology out there that one could argue would have been stifled
if engineers were told to only focus on what people want or need, not
what is possible purely at the engineering level.
And for the people who claim UCD already involves engineering and
business, I say why the heck do people call it "user centered" design
then?
Anyways, the point is that from my perspective (i.e., not having
much vested
interest in UCD, Usability, HCI, Design, IA, and so on), you're
setting up
an unnecessary (and damaging) dichotomy. It's not understanding
people OR
designing. It's both.
I have no idea where people get the notion I think it's one or the
other. Remember, I'm the guy who thinks interaction designers need to
know how to draw and graphic designers need to know how to design for
behaviors if they want to work on software. I'm the guy who thinks
type and color are important while also thinking that great code and
being able to write some of it is also important. I'm the one who
pushed for a far more holistic approach to the design of software
products for two decades now, while everyone in Silicon Valley kept
further and further segmenting their design teams into people who
could only perform certain types of design tasks instead of more.
I rant against UCD process and methods because in my experience, they
are not inclusive enough.
--
Andrei Herasimchuk
Chief Design Officer, Involution Studios
innovating the digital world
e. [email protected]
c. +1 408 306 6422
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