Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where that ACD thing fits
I'm not sure I agree with Jared's surgical analogy. A medical or surgical professional will always endeavour to prescribe the most appropriate treatment for any particular condition, and those treatments are (generally) pretty well defined by the larger surgical community. So it's not like the surgeon has a choice. Stepping outside of the accepted option is likely to lead him into some pretty deep water and, in all likelihood (in the US at least), to litigation. As UX professionals, on the other hand, we have a free choice to make about which methodology to follow, and in our interpretation of what that methodolgy actually means in practice. To design an immersive and intuitive experience within the context of Rich Internet Applications (which is what Adobe Consulting are all about), I'd argue that we need to understand our users AND the activities they perform (or will be able to perform once we've worked our magic). So I don't see UCD and ACD being mutually exclusive; rather I think the latter is a component of the former. Which i think is what Jared is saying when he describes ACD as a lazy man's UCD. Now, the importance of laziness as a valuable human trait to be observed and leveraged in the search for innovative solutions is an idea I've been kicking around for some time. In fact, it's kinda spooky seeing Jared talk about it here, as it forms the basis of my presentation next week at MAX 2008. (Lazy Innovation. Monday 17 November, Moscone Centre, San Francisco at 11:30am for those who are interested in attending. Hope you'll forgive the shameless plug here.) Much of what Jared has written above chimes perfectly with what I'll be saying, so it's good to know in advance that I haven't completely lost my mind. I don't want to pre-empt the talk by going into too much detail now, but I'll post my thoughts on the subject here once I've got the event out of the way. Hopefully it'll be of interest to followers of this thread. George Neill Lead Experience Architect, EMEA Adobe Consulting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=35466 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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where that ACD thing fits
And how is activity theory incompatible with persona creation and dissemination? The challenge here is that you are using something that is fictional to convey something that is based on real data. That is not to say that Activity Theory is answer, and I agree that AT maybe should be part of the Tool set. When you use a Persona you are adding Fictional information to help bring to life boring dry data. I will take Jared's example of the nurses workstation. Let us image that we carried out observations of 32 nurses (n=32). We took the data and to help us convey this information to the rest of the team we create 5 Personas (p=5). To further use some of Jared examples lets us imagine that 3 of them have poor eyesight, 6 of them are training nurses, 10 them have many years experience, 10 of them are on short teem rotation, and 3 of them have a family dog. We combine the data from different real nurses, into Personas, to make it easier to understand, and convey the information to the rest of the team. So we create a Persona who has poor eyesight, and is a training nurse. We create another one who has a family dog and is on short term rotation. We are challenged because none of real nurses actually have both poor eyesight and are training nurse, and none of them are on short term rotation and have a dog. None of 5 Personas represent any of the 32 real participants. We effectively thrown away all our data away. Instead of the 5 personas representing 30 nurses, what we end up with is 5 personas and 30 nurses. We effectively end up with a fictional brief. There may be an argument that you could use a Throw Away Persona, as Norman suggests. A one time example, as I have used here. Jared argues to reduce the amount of information for each persona, I guess to get around this issue. Why not go all the way and then just label each of the subject with a name? Throw out the fake and not the real data. Activity Theory is describing behaviour that is happening at the point of research. Like Ethnography it is not a predictive method. While I from what I can understand people are using Personas as a way of predicating behaviour. Personally I don't think AT is the answer, but UCD needs some philosophy. Both Art and Science has Theory to help. All the best James On Thu, Nov 13, 2008 at 10:57 AM, Jared Spool [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Nov 13, 2008, at 5:49 AM, James Page wrote: The point I am trying to make is that Activity Theory output is the activity and actions of individuals. The Persona acts as a stereotype between real users and the designer. There may be a problem with Activity Theory been dry. One can see from this discussion that people don't understand it. But the advantage that it has got is that it has got a theory. And it is based on the behaviour of individuals. Activity Theory has allot of problems, and don't think it is ideal, but at least it does have a theory to back it self up with. And how is activity theory incompatible with persona creation and dissemination? (the other) 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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where that ACD thing fits
So I'm wondering why Jared framed ACD as ignoring the goals, needs, and contexts of the users. Because from what I have heard is Jared is neither Swedish, nor has background in Marxist Theory, either of these qualifications is really important to fully comprehend Activity Theory. :-) I think what Jared is trying to say is that AT is not predictive of behaviour, but rather describes it, but I may be wrong. James Activity Theory On Fri, Nov 14, 2008 at 7:43 PM, Joshua Seiden [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Right, and in that article, in the context of advocating for ACD, Larry writes, The first and most important thing to understand is why people engage in activities. All human activity is purposeful. So I'm wondering why Jared framed ACD as ignoring the goals, needs, and contexts of the users. JS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=35466 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 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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where that ACD thing fits
James, I think that you are mis-characterizing personas. A persona is simply a model. It can be a good model or a bad model. When you write: None of 5 Personas represent any of the 32 real participants. We effectively thrown away all our data away. This is simply an example of a bad persona set. In a good persona set, no data is thrown away. Instead, all data is represented, but in a manner that organizes it in a useful way. JS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=35466 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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where that ACD thing fits
Hi Joshua, In this paper, I see at attempt to describe a rigorous system for modeling and understanding user activity in the context of goals, intentions, social context and all of the other higher-order constructs that we say makes good UCD good. To me this places ACD not on a continuum with UCD, but rather next to it--and simply working to accomplish the same thing, but from a different perspective. I Larry's paper, seems he integrated activity modeling with his usage centered design, which dosen't mean he come up with ACD, isnt it? (but from the other link, it seems he address the meaning of ACD), And UCD more like a claim for the goal, that we should design to meet user's needs and motivation; while ACD more like a advocate, that activity (analyze or similliar stuff) should be at the foundation of design practices. If so, there are not in parallel, aren't they? And ACD could be one way of UCD? Regards, Jarod ( not jared) -- http://designforuse.blogspot.com/ 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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where that ACD thing fits
Josh, It can be a good model or a bad model. Most theories would argue that a good model needs testing. How do you test your Persona's? Testing means that you need to measure the output of your model, and compare it to the real world. I really do not see how you can do this with Personas. How can I be certain that the model has no confirmation bias in it? This is simply an example of a bad persona set How do you know if it is a bad persona set? What test can I do see if it is a good one, or a bad one? John von Neumann said, 'with four parameters I can fit an elephant and with five I can make him wiggle his trunk.' See http://mahalanobis.twoday.net/stories/264091/ Instead, all data is represented, but in a manner that organizes it in a useful way. It may help the conversation if you try to building a Persona from the example originally given by Jared. James On Sat, Nov 15, 2008 at 3:18 PM, Josh Seiden [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: James, I think that you are mis-characterizing personas. A persona is simply a model. It can be a good model or a bad model. When you write: None of 5 Personas represent any of the 32 real participants. We effectively thrown away all our data away. This is simply an example of a bad persona set. In a good persona set, no data is thrown away. Instead, all data is represented, but in a manner that organizes it in a useful way. JS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=35466 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 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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where that ACD thing fits
Jarod-- just to be clear, I'm not making any claims about Larry's work, other than to say that in his definition of ACD, he accounts for goals and other higher-order concepts. This seems to contradict what Jared posted about at the beginning of this thread: that ACD did not account for these things. So I'm just asking Jared (not Jarod :-) to clarify. James-- I know that you've created a bad persona set by definition. If the persona set ignores or discards the data, it's not what most serious practitioners call a persona. It's what most serious practitioners call a bad persona. I'm also hesitant to get into a long discussion of personas here. That's another thread. JS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=35466 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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where that ACD thing fits
Hi Josh, On Sun, Nov 16, 2008 at 3:37 AM, Josh Seiden [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Jarod-- just to be clear, I'm not making any claims about Larry's work, other than to say that in his definition of ACD, he accounts for goals and other higher-order concepts. This seems to contradict what Jared posted about at the beginning of this thread: that ACD did not account for these things. So I'm just asking Jared (not Jarod :-) to clarify. Sorry for miss-interpretation of your intention. And I agree, that Jared's ACD definition contradict with normal Activity Theory's activity definition. more links may as 1. http://www.amazon.com/Acting-Technology-Activity-Theory-Interaction/dp/0262112981 2. http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/1558608087/181-0321423-0466727?SubscriptionId=1100889MK2XY9PSTV5G2 Both clearly define activity holds user's motivation, context, and tool mediators. Regards, Jarod -- http://designforuse.blogspot.com/ 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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where that ACD thing fits
allison wrote: Pfffttt I believe that's the official Calvin and Hobbes version. 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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where that ACD thing fits
Jared, I think that the characterization of ACD as a subset of UCD is something that proponents of ACD would disagree with. Rather than think of these schools of thought as existing on a continuum, it seems to me that they exist as parallel systems that seek to provide a framework with which to design. Quoting Larry Constantine (who has been writing about this recently): Activity theory further characterizes human activity as hierarchical. ... activity can be understood at three levels of analysis: activity, action, and operation. Activity consists of collections of actions directed toward goals that contribute to or are related to the purpose of the activity. Actions in turn comprise operations, conscious or non-conscious, adapted to emerging conditions in service of the goals of the actions. This discussion can be found in Larry's paper on the subject here: http://foruse.com/articles/activitymodeling.htm In this paper, I see at attempt to describe a rigorous system for modeling and understanding user activity in the context of goals, intentions, social context and all of the other higher-order constructs that we say makes good UCD good. To me this places ACD not on a continuum with UCD, but rather next to it--and simply working to accomplish the same thing, but from a different perspective. I'm wondering if you've seen Larry's work on this? If so, do you come to a different conclusion than I did? JS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=35466 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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where that ACD thing fits
I'm wondering if you've seen Larry's work on this? If so, do you come to a different conclusion than I did? There's an article on Jared's own site from Larry. http://www.uie.com/articles/designing_web_applications_for_use/ -r- 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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where that ACD thing fits
Right, and in that article, in the context of advocating for ACD, Larry writes, The first and most important thing to understand is why people engage in activities. All human activity is purposeful. So I'm wondering why Jared framed ACD as ignoring the goals, needs, and contexts of the users. JS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=35466 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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where that ACD thing fits
In using Larry Constantine's view of ACD, I don't find any discernible difference of value between ACD and UCD. It is neither parallel or contained within one vs. the other. It just seems like a specific way of reframing that which already existed as UCD for the previous 30 years. What was previous called tasks are now being called activities. And the total tool kit of UCD that has been created over the last 30 years is just as used in part or in whole by the practitioner as before. Basically, why? -- dave . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=35466 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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where that ACD thing fits
Dave, The why is contained in the first article that I cited. Larry's work is concerned with modeling systems--ways to represent the working knowledge during design process steps--language. I read in that article an attempt to create a robust and repeatable way to model the problem space in a design project. So I agree--it's not about value distinctions, but about a quest for more precise language. At least, that's how I read it--not trying to put words in anyone's mouth. JS JS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=35466 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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where that ACD thing fits
James, This thread has brought me close to the conclusion that Activity Theory (AT) and Activity Centered Design (ACD) have nothing to do with each other except for a vocabulary overlap. AT is user-centered in that activities cannot be understood outside of the social context in which they occur. Jared's definition of ACD (which many seem to agree with) states that ACD does the opposite -- focuses on activity outside of social context. In order to reconcile the two ideas, we need to amend Jared's definition: The design that results from teams that only research the activities. To something like: The design that results from teams that research activities, the tools that are used in those activities, and the context in which they occur. Jackson Fox UX Designer @ Viget Labs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=35466 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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where that ACD thing fits
I suspect that ACD could be considered a modular component of UCD, a component that could be exercised on its own, but which really should be incorporated into a larger UCD process. ACD should be a part of the design process, closely related to functional design, one that -might- be sufficient on its own if a designer is pressed for time or if a project has a very limited set of functionalities. In a way, ACD jumps from Requirements to Functions without focusing on the intermediary step of thinking about how and why users would wish to fulfill the goals that require said functions. Jared, I like your scale metaphor. It's a continuum of design, which is precisely how the real world functions. In the company I work for, we often have to decide up front how much design time and research time we can allocate. Although we don't have a formal scale the likes of which you have proposed, I see in this scale a very strong parallel to our projected design-depth results. Short term projects tend to fall back on self and genius design, longer term projects include ACD and UCD. The very best, robust projects, almost always extend deeply into UCD (but include initial ACD steps). I think the scale metaphor is very valuable. ACD also seems to be closely related to Requirements Gathering and Functional Specifications Implementation, so I think that it is precisely correct to put it as the step before (or beneath) UCD on a scale. Many designs end a functional implementations when really they could seriously benefit from a deeper UCD approach. Kudos, Damon Slinging my UX in Providence 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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where that ACD thing fits
Guys, I created this simple diagram to illustrate my understanding of the differences between ACD vs UCD. http://flickr.com/photos/neuno/3027380216/sizes/o/ Please feel free to take it apart. Regards ShahW 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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where that ACD thing fits
Yes, you are right demographics by themselves is not important, but rather the generalizations which are real around those demographics that we use. BUT the demographics are necessary for gaining insights (and often even creating) those generalizations. I'm not saying that you are saying this Jared, but I just want to add that Market Research IS an important data contributor for design research. They've been doing this longer and with some pretty descent results, so there is definitely a lot of cross-pollination that can go on between market and user research. Demographic studies is a great tool for user researchers to tie their own data studies into. Regardless, I think my main and more important point is that activity centered design feels soul-less to me. It's motivation as I've heard people describe it here and other places is discount UCD (getting to the point quickly). And like all things discount, you get what you pay for. That being said, sometimes ya got no choice b/c you can only afford the discount version of things and something is always better than nothing. But I think that's why for me ACD is a part of a greater whole of UCD that you can pick and choose from depending on the total context of the design environment. --dave On Thu, Nov 13, 2008 at 6:13 AM, Jared Spool [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Nov 12, 2008, at 5:56 PM, David Malouf wrote: If I were designing it from a UCD perspective, I do care, or that the person is elderly and needs large print, or any other demographic type information. Just for the record, properly done UCD wouldn't care about demographics. It would care about behaviors. It doesn't matter what age someone is. If they need large print to complete their objective, they need large print, independent of age (or income group, geographic location political persuasion, gender preference, dental history, dislike of sushi, . . .) Jared -- David Malouf http://synapticburn.com/ http://ixda.org/ http://motorola.com/ 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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where that ACD thing fits
Regardless, I think my main and more important point is that activity centered design feels soul-less to me. It's motivation as I've heard people describe it here and other places is discount UCD (getting to the point quickly). I would argue that UCD, as typically practiced, is soulless, too, as it focuses on tasks and goals, and thus has a reductive understanding of humans. UCD tends to treat people as robots whose goal is to maximize productivity, to relentlessly accomplish a goal. One thing that reassures me is the increasing embrace of anthropological and sociological methods, which takes us beyond tasks and goals, and towards behavior, motivation, context and culture. This more holistic appreciation of people ought to provide insights that allow for superior products and services. --peter 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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where that ACD thing fits
Ptthh. (Is there a better online way to represent a raspberry?) Pfffttt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=35466 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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where that ACD thing fits
Some good points have been made, and they compeeled me to do some retrospective analysis of my own design career to gain clarity on the issue. I can't pretend that I've ever consciously done ACD; like a recent commenter said, to me this is little more than basic SDLC design driven by functional requirements. And for this reason I can easily recall hundreds of times I've done ACD, whether through ignorance or compromise. In deference to those who see value in ACD, I can also recall some times that I have done ACD where I don't think UCD would have added enough value to be worth the incremental effort. Some examples: Adding a sort utility to a query result. It wasn't really worthwhile to get into the mind of the user...it seemed like a good idea because the activity itself had apparent value (is this really an example of genius design?), and the cost of implementation was relatively low. Designing a customization/monogramming process for a clothing retailer. The client said that their customers wanted to monogram, and I went along with an designed a system that attempted to meet the needs of the user without ever knowing, or particularly caring, who that was. As long as it seemed like the user could complete the task without confusion or rage, I considered the design a success. Now both examples could potentially havee benefitted from UCD...the first example to validate the need for a sort, and to uncover any other related unmet needs, and the second to improve the engagement of the utility to promote upsell and loyalty. But not for free...good UCD, the only kind worth practicing, takes time and money. I also tried to think of a time I did UCD that didn't include some measure of ACD, and all I came up with was one real and one hypothetical example. The hypothetical first: Designing the music that plays in on of those hip clothing boutiques that caters to people half my age. I know that it's there to supercede activity and create mood and atmosphere...one that is likely to drive a grumpy old man like me across the aisle to Brooks Brothers, where it's nice and quiet. One that makes it impossible for hand-holding post-adolescents to talk to each other, so the only remaining form of social communication is to shop (or text...could ubicomp beat the blaring soundtracks?). The idea is to make the store like a nightclub...enabling and driving to specific activities, but the design of the environment is activity-independent. And a real case: Ages ago my colleagues and I designed a pitch book similar in execution to the Google Chrome comic. The primary driving force behind the design of our book was to create an impressions and to entertain while informing, but we weren't looking for any specific activity in the context of our artifact. I'm sure that many designers here have worked on projects where the engagement was the goal, and a good knowledge of the audience, in my case marketing managers and brand managers. But most of the time I agree that ACD is either a subset of UCD, or a stepping stone in a larger methodology. And if you're still reading, I wonder what YOU think. Dante 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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where that ACD thing fits
On 11 Nov 2008, at 14:30, Jared Spool wrote: On Nov 11, 2008, at 3:01 AM, Adrian Howard wrote: On 11 Nov 2008, at 02:51, Livia Labate wrote: [snip] How far removed from the ultimate user goal/ambition is the step/ thing I need to design? The more layers of abstraction between the atomic tasks or set of tasks that represent an activity and the end goal for the user, more helpful a UCD approach. The less abstract/more direct, more helpful ACD. -- ACD usefulness grows focus on ACTIVITY focus on USER GOALS UCD usefulness grows -- Ah - this actually makes sense to me. ACD UCD as different ends of a spectrum - rather than different things. I don't see that. You can't design with a focus on user goals without thinking about activity. So, in my mind, they are not different ends of the spectrum. ACD ignores goals, needs, and context, whereas UCD does not. It's a superset / subset relationship. [snip] I guess this leads back to my question of not really getting how ACD can ignore goals/needs/context - coz I don't see how you can think about activities without having some concept, however minimal, of the end users goals, needs and context. It briefly made sense to me as: * ACD = uses activity as the driver for design (supported by user models when necessary) * UCD = uses the user as the driver for design (supported by activity models when necessary) But you're right - it's subset/superset. So... I still don't get ACD... can somebody point me to some background reading that might clarify it for me? Cheers, Adrian 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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where that ACD thing fits
Jared your points reflect a conversation we often have here at Clearleft. We say we do UCD, but ask ourselves do we really do ACD? I reckon the answer is both. Or more particularly we do ACD with a UCD wrapper. That is to say we do user research and personas, but only enough to give useful context for the subsequent ACD. So the research and persona development is activity-focused. It's used to determine the activities that need to be designed and provides the settings in which that activity might occur. In your example of a photo sharing site, one activity would almost certainly be to upload a photo. Our research and personas would indicate whether users would be happy uploading one photo at a time or whether there should be a batch (instead or as well). It may even identify that uploading is not viable for the majority of users, and that an alternative solution would need to be developed. The point is that the UCD is limited to informing the ACD, thus avoiding dogmatic processes and freeing us to be able to choose the most appropriate tools to the job at hand. [Expanded upon at http://clagnut.com/blog/2208/] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=35466 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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where that ACD thing fits
I would argue that ACD is more part of the evolution of UCD. Design is about framing problems, and ACD is more of an evolving perspective of UCD to frame design problems. I would agree with following view point made On 11 Nov 2008, at 02:51, Livia Labate wrote: [snip]Dan Saffer differentiates ACS and UCS in his Designing for Interaction book very similarly/succinctly. His best point is that the PURPOSE of an activity is not necessarily a user goal, meaning looking at a design problem with a user goal in mind may be too esoteric and not necessarily helpful (which is the pro argument for ACD).[trim] Fundamentally for me ACD for me draws on the principles framework set out in Activity theory and so for this reason I would argue that it is much more that a modern day task analysis to design. At its core activities consist of the tools people use, the subject the people themselves and the material object that can be tangible or totally intangible. There are also several interesting point made by Josha Porter on the blog post - http://bokardo.com/archives/activity-centered-design/. A particularly interesting point from the blog post is a point raised by Don Norman in the article %u2018Human-Centered Design Considered Harmful%u2019. Norman says: %u201CMany of the systems that have passed through HCD design phases and usability reviews are superb at the level of the static, individual display, but fail to support the sequential requirements of the underlying tasks and activities. The HCD methods tend to miss this aspect of behavior: Activity-centered methods focus upon it.%u201D To this I would ask how much of ACD and USD methods differentiate and overlap in design practice? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=35466 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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where that ACD thing fits
Jared, Great post. I think one important difference of ACD vs UCD is that ACD has a strong paradigm behind it. ACD comes out of Activity Theory. This should make ACD more concrete than a UCD approach, which seams to have little of a core. In your email you quote the following Who cares what we call it? My clients/co-workers don't care what it is, as long as I produce great designs. Let's just agree that what we do is a good thing, whether we label it ACD or UCD or whatever. For example another approach in another industry is Agile. Just look at the adoption... Part of the brilliance was giving a set of practices a foundation. Most of the rules where being used already, when the Agile Manifesto was created. The manifesto gave agile, as Imre Lakatos (to the centre of Philosophy), would say a core, or if you are Kuhn fan (to the left of Philosophy ) believer a paradigm. UCD lacks the core, or paradigm and therefore if you are believe in either, Kuhn or Lakatos, or Herb Simon, UCD will be challenged in building up a centre of knowledge, that can be expanded upon. Just to clear up the view that ACD does not use User Research. My business partner, Sabrina Mach explained in another email discussion, that ACD can use it:- For example the difference between pure ethnography and activity theory or distributed cogition is that ethnography is completely unstructured. Ethnographers start observation without any preconception, they simply observes and do not judge. The advantage of Activity theory on the other hand allows the observer to structure their observations. It focuses on the individual in terms of their sociality of work, members of the system, working division of labour, and artefacts. This paper explains distributed cognition and Activity theory quiet well. http://www.research.ibm.com/SocialComputing/Papers/CAH1.pdf http://www.research.ibm.com/SocialComputing/Papers/CAH1.pdf So in the end it depends what the aim of a study is... if you want to gather requirements and understand behavior, AT and DCog are probably quiet good... if you want to be able to predict how well something will work you are better of with a method that allows more quantitative assessment. What is reduced in using ACD is what is used to inform the design. This ambirgurity in what is UCD in turn creates a risk for the client. If one can not define the approach how can we compare which method is best? So your categorization is very useful. But would it be good idea to further refine it by looking at the stage of processes. Research, Idea generation, Testing, Launch, and Refinement? For example if we take your genius and ACD example where does Morita and the Walkman fit in. He spent allot of time thinking about the Activity of the device, after coming up with original idea. Does it need a record button. Size: It needs to fit into a suit pocket without ruining the cut of a jacket. In his book Made in Japan that Sony differed from the American style of design by getting to a working prototype fast, and then testing where he said the Americans believe in doing mock ups and simulations. James On Tue, Nov 11, 2008 at 3:33 AM, Jeff Stevenson [EMAIL PROTECTED]wrote: Thanks, Jared. This really helps me to understand better where you were coming from in your IA Summit keynote. To me, the difference between UCD and ACD is mostly about WHEN, in the timeline of a project, you start doing your research. Let me give an example. Let's say my client is a financial institution. They come to me saying, We really want to target people who are setting up their first bank account. We're not sure how to make ourselves stand out, so what do you recommend?. At that stage in the process, I would definitely want to do UCD. I want to know what types of personas are creating their first bank account. What are their unmet needs? What do they want to do online with their bank account? What keywords are they searching for when they research bank accounts online? etc. I would begin with UCD. But consider another scenario. Let's say the same financial institution comes to me and says I want to create an online tool for people to check their balance, transfer money, and order more checks. In that case, I could just begin designing a solution that met those requirements. I wouldn't technically need to know more information about my users to execute on that request. The requirements have already been defined, so I would begin with ACD. The problem is that the tool I build may or may not solve anyone's real problem. I haven't gotten to the important questions, which are: - Why does the bank want to build this tool? (What is their business objective?) - What functions do the users want to be able to do? - Which functions are most important? - What would help this tool to stand out relative to the bank's competitors? And that's the nice thing about UCD. It puts us in the mindset that we are solving problems, not
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where that ACD thing fits
ACD ignores goals, needs, and context, whereas UCD does not. It's a superset / subset relationship. Just to clear up Activity Theory does not ignore this. For example you start off by observing users. From this observation you break down the groups into praxis (people doing the same thing), and then you break the individuals behaviour into activities, of which you break down further into actions, which are further subdivided into operations. The activities, actions, and operations are what then informs the design. Dependent on your users the activities, actions, and operations may be different for different users. Take your nurses example. The experienced nurse may have different activities, actions, and operations then the Trainee nurse, even though they operate in the same praxis. On the other hand with UCD you again start by observing users, and then from this observation you create Personas, which then informs your design. So the difference between the two approaches is the output used to inform design. James On Tue, Nov 11, 2008 at 2:31 PM, mark schraad [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Another way of looking at it is this: Are you looking to drive behavior or accommodate it? WIth functionality that is new you may have more liberty in directing the tasks and activities. For improving functionality that already exists, you may want to lean towards integrating that pre-existing behavior. In this later situation, user research becomes critical. On Tue, Nov 11, 2008 at 3:01 AM, Adrian Howard [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 11 Nov 2008, at 02:51, Livia Labate wrote: [snip] How far removed from the ultimate user goal/ambition is the step/thing I need to design? The more layers of abstraction between the atomic tasks or set of tasks that represent an activity and the end goal for the user, more helpful a UCD approach. The less abstract/more direct, more helpful ACD. -- ACD usefulness grows focus on ACTIVITY focus on USER GOALS UCD usefulness grows -- Ah - this actually makes sense to me. ACD UCD as different ends of a spectrum - rather than different things. Thank you. Adrian 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 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 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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where that ACD thing fits
We (my design team) do not see any separation between UCD and ACD. They are NOT mutually exclusive in any of the products we design. When we incorporate ACD (more specifically, Activity Theory Framework) in our practice we introduce many opportunities to discover new tools and features for our Users. Check out this diagram from a conference session I recently conducted regarding Activity Modeling: http://openscreens.com/articles/activity-modeling-for-kanban-pull-systems/attachment/activitymodeling_ux_kaizenconf-copy Let me know if you have any suggestions or questions. Cheers! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=35466 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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where that ACD thing fits
coz I don't see how you can think about activities without having some concept, however minimal, of the end users goals, needs and context. Activity Theory breaks everything down into activities, actions, and operations are what then informs the design. Activity Theory very much takes the user in :- In AT, the perspective of the individual is at the center of everything. AT focuses on the cognitive process of an individual situated in a social, cultural, historical, and artifactual world. From http://www.research.ibm.com/http://www.research.ibm.com/SocialComputing/Papers/CAH1.pdf So http://www.research.ibm.com/SocialComputing/Papers/CAH1.pdf cialComputing/Papers/CAH1.http://www.research.ibm.com/SocialComputing/Papers/CAH1.pdf pdf http://www.research.ibm.com/SocialComputing/Papers/CAH1.pdf Hope this helps James On Wed, Nov 12, 2008 at 7:48 PM, Adrian Howard [EMAIL PROTECTED]wrote: On 11 Nov 2008, at 14:30, Jared Spool wrote: On Nov 11, 2008, at 3:01 AM, Adrian Howard wrote: On 11 Nov 2008, at 02:51, Livia Labate wrote: [snip] How far removed from the ultimate user goal/ambition is the step/thing I need to design? The more layers of abstraction between the atomic tasks or set of tasks that represent an activity and the end goal for the user, more helpful a UCD approach. The less abstract/more direct, more helpful ACD. -- ACD usefulness grows focus on ACTIVITY focus on USER GOALS UCD usefulness grows -- Ah - this actually makes sense to me. ACD UCD as different ends of a spectrum - rather than different things. I don't see that. You can't design with a focus on user goals without thinking about activity. So, in my mind, they are not different ends of the spectrum. ACD ignores goals, needs, and context, whereas UCD does not. It's a superset / subset relationship. [snip] I guess this leads back to my question of not really getting how ACD can ignore goals/needs/context - coz I don't see how you can think about activities without having some concept, however minimal, of the end users goals, needs and context. It briefly made sense to me as: * ACD = uses activity as the driver for design (supported by user models when necessary) * UCD = uses the user as the driver for design (supported by activity models when necessary) But you're right - it's subset/superset. So... I still don't get ACD... can somebody point me to some background reading that might clarify it for me? Cheers, Adrian 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 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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where that ACD thing fits
Richard, How do you combine Persona's and Activity Theory? I don't see how the two are compatible. AT looks at activities through real behaviour. If you add Personas you are adding a multitude of parameters in the middle. James On Tue, Nov 11, 2008 at 10:38 AM, Richard Rutter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Jared your points reflect a conversation we often have here at Clearleft. We say we do UCD, but ask ourselves do we really do ACD? I reckon the answer is both. Or more particularly we do ACD with a UCD wrapper. That is to say we do user research and personas, but only enough to give useful context for the subsequent ACD. So the research and persona development is activity-focused. It's used to determine the activities that need to be designed and provides the settings in which that activity might occur. In your example of a photo sharing site, one activity would almost certainly be to upload a photo. Our research and personas would indicate whether users would be happy uploading one photo at a time or whether there should be a batch (instead or as well). It may even identify that uploading is not viable for the majority of users, and that an alternative solution would need to be developed. The point is that the UCD is limited to informing the ACD, thus avoiding dogmatic processes and freeing us to be able to choose the most appropriate tools to the job at hand. [Expanded upon at http://clagnut.com/blog/2208/] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=35466 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 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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where that ACD thing fits
Hi James, How do you combine Persona's and Activity Theory? How do you separate human activity from human ? Persona just reflects human ( human with motivation and goals in specific context), and activities reflects what/how they do, isnt it? As previous discussing from other thread, you can say not all guys advocating activity centered design appreciate ActivityTheory (because it's dry and not so practical until now). Instead designers use the situated scenario (some guys calls it HIS/HER version of use case ) for many years, which can be regard as activity enabled design. If you looks through the practice, you''ll find designers combine persona and scenario (activity) frequently and naturally. Regards, Jarod On Thu, Nov 13, 2008 at 7:41 AM, James Page [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Richard, How do you combine Persona's and Activity Theory? I don't see how the two are compatible. AT looks at activities through real behaviour. If you add Personas you are adding a multitude of parameters in the middle. James On Tue, Nov 11, 2008 at 10:38 AM, Richard Rutter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Jared your points reflect a conversation we often have here at Clearleft. We say we do UCD, but ask ourselves do we really do ACD? I reckon the answer is both. Or more particularly we do ACD with a UCD wrapper. That is to say we do user research and personas, but only enough to give useful context for the subsequent ACD. So the research and persona development is activity-focused. It's used to determine the activities that need to be designed and provides the settings in which that activity might occur. In your example of a photo sharing site, one activity would almost certainly be to upload a photo. Our research and personas would indicate whether users would be happy uploading one photo at a time or whether there should be a batch (instead or as well). It may even identify that uploading is not viable for the majority of users, and that an alternative solution would need to be developed. The point is that the UCD is limited to informing the ACD, thus avoiding dogmatic processes and freeing us to be able to choose the most appropriate tools to the job at hand. [Expanded upon at http://clagnut.com/blog/2208/] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=35466 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 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 -- http://designforuse.blogspot.com/ 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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where that ACD thing fits
UX designers may not be able to provide a singular definition of UCD, but I'm not sure that 10 doctors treating cancer would be able to come up with a singular approach to treatment, either. I think it depends on the problem and context (patient and cancer type, stage, funds, etc.), just as for it would for a UX professional. Furthermore, there's probably a difference in the type of doctor who's asked to treat the cancer. I've been thinking lately that some of the difficulties in defining terms in the UX profession has more to do with the type of the professional being asked the question, than with the terms in the question itself. If you asked 10 psychologists what's the best treatment for depression, you'd probably get 15 different answers too, because the question doesn't take into account which psychologists are cognitive psychologists or child psychologists, and which are family counselors or university researchers. In a similar way as UCD vs ACD, for some psychological treatments, such as addiction, an immediate solution to the problem is to break the addiction. If you're addicted to using X, stop doing X. This will treat the behavior, an activity-centered approach to addiction, but it probably won't help the patient for long. And, if you asked a psychologist what's the best way to break a person's addiction to X, there will probably be different responses to the best treatment option. Then again, the UX problems are not as complex as human psychology, and if the APA has the DSM...?? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=35466 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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where that ACD thing fits
Oy! I'm just going to ignore that Doc thing. To answer Adrian, If I were to design Flickr from an ACD POV I only care about the activities of uploading, tagging, sharing, viewing, mapping, etc. I really don't care whether primary persona A's goal for sharing is to become the next Annie Leibovitch or not. If I were designing it from a UCD perspective, I do care, or that the person is elderly and needs large print, or any other demographic type information. personally, I think ACD = backwards IxD. It is going back to that nasty realm of usability-based IxD where aesthetics, emotion and story telling (can't tell a good story w/o good characters) are core elements of good IxD. So I'm less concerned with is ACD X or Y, but rather, should I care. -- dave . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=35466 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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where that ACD thing fits
Hi Dave, Your answer inspires. Maybe, more proper is back from the result, by asking what leads to the good design instead of UCD or ACD? I do like the IxD , in which the design is for good user experience, and by analyzing user's activity. regards, Jarod On Thu, Nov 13, 2008 at 9:56 AM, David Malouf [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Oy! I'm just going to ignore that Doc thing. To answer Adrian, If I were to design Flickr from an ACD POV I only care about the activities of uploading, tagging, sharing, viewing, mapping, etc. I really don't care whether primary persona A's goal for sharing is to become the next Annie Leibovitch or not. If I were designing it from a UCD perspective, I do care, or that the person is elderly and needs large print, or any other demographic type information. personally, I think ACD = backwards IxD. It is going back to that nasty realm of usability-based IxD where aesthetics, emotion and story telling (can't tell a good story w/o good characters) are core elements of good IxD. So I'm less concerned with is ACD X or Y, but rather, should I care. -- dave . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=35466 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 -- http://designforuse.blogspot.com/ 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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where that ACD thing fits
That's the thing that's always confused me about the UCD vs ACD discussions - I can't understand how you can separate activities/tasks from the understanding of the user context/goals. There always seems to be a little loop that I go around. Looking at the activities/tasks helps get deeper into the user/context. Understanding the users/context helps me get deeper into the activities/tasks. This is a great question, I can't understand how you can separate activities/tasks from the understanding of the user context/goals. By it's nature, there's no so called UCD without activity analyze, and no ACD without taking into account user's goal, context and experience. Because the activity is a sequence of action by people for archiving some goal ( consciously or subconsciously ) in a specific context. User experience is not designed but enabled by a (interaction and related) design (we can say design for good user experience, logic for), while activity lay at foundation components of interaction design (we can say design based on people's related activity analyze,, logic by ). UCD and ACD has no conflicts or at different level, but they are just facets of one cube. For self design and genius design, I really find it's funny, it could be called a design method, cause they just describe the designer and end user's role relationship, in both case, you cant avoid the points 1) design for better experience (logic for) 2) based on activity analyze ( logic by ) Thanks for the great question again. Regards, Jarod ( not Jared :) ) -- http://designforuse.blogspot.com/ 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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where that ACD thing fits
Outstanding post, Jared. I particularly applaud your characterization of personas, their role in guiding UCD (and distinguishing it from ACD), and the need to focus on qualities that actually impact design. That for me is the key to crafting a set of personas - to create as FEW personas as is necessary to encompass all of the substantive design-relevant qualities of the target population. Paul . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=35466 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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where that ACD thing fits
-- ACD usefulness grows focus on ACTIVITY focus on USER GOALS UCD usefulness grows -- I don't see that. You can't design with a focus on user goals without thinking about activity. So, in my mind, they are not different ends of the spectrum. ACD ignores goals, needs, and context, whereas UCD does not. It's a superset / subset relationship. Yup, you're right. It doesn't work thinking about it as a spectrum. 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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where that ACD thing fits
On 11 Nov 2008, at 02:51, Livia Labate wrote: [snip] How far removed from the ultimate user goal/ambition is the step/ thing I need to design? The more layers of abstraction between the atomic tasks or set of tasks that represent an activity and the end goal for the user, more helpful a UCD approach. The less abstract/ more direct, more helpful ACD. -- ACD usefulness grows focus on ACTIVITY focus on USER GOALS UCD usefulness grows -- Ah - this actually makes sense to me. ACD UCD as different ends of a spectrum - rather than different things. Thank you. Adrian 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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where that ACD thing fits
On Nov 11, 2008, at 3:01 AM, Adrian Howard wrote: On 11 Nov 2008, at 02:51, Livia Labate wrote: [snip] How far removed from the ultimate user goal/ambition is the step/ thing I need to design? The more layers of abstraction between the atomic tasks or set of tasks that represent an activity and the end goal for the user, more helpful a UCD approach. The less abstract/ more direct, more helpful ACD. -- ACD usefulness grows focus on ACTIVITY focus on USER GOALS UCD usefulness grows -- Ah - this actually makes sense to me. ACD UCD as different ends of a spectrum - rather than different things. I don't see that. You can't design with a focus on user goals without thinking about activity. So, in my mind, they are not different ends of the spectrum. ACD ignores goals, needs, and context, whereas UCD does not. It's a superset / subset relationship. 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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where that ACD thing fits
Another way of looking at it is this: Are you looking to drive behavior or accommodate it? WIth functionality that is new you may have more liberty in directing the tasks and activities. For improving functionality that already exists, you may want to lean towards integrating that pre-existing behavior. In this later situation, user research becomes critical. On Tue, Nov 11, 2008 at 3:01 AM, Adrian Howard [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 11 Nov 2008, at 02:51, Livia Labate wrote: [snip] How far removed from the ultimate user goal/ambition is the step/thing I need to design? The more layers of abstraction between the atomic tasks or set of tasks that represent an activity and the end goal for the user, more helpful a UCD approach. The less abstract/more direct, more helpful ACD. -- ACD usefulness grows focus on ACTIVITY focus on USER GOALS UCD usefulness grows -- Ah - this actually makes sense to me. ACD UCD as different ends of a spectrum - rather than different things. Thank you. Adrian 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 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
[IxDA Discuss] Where that ACD thing fits
So, I've spent much of the last month thinking about what Activity- Centered Design (or ACD) might be and where it fits into other design approaches. This long-winded email is an attempt to get these thoughts out. Before I start, the last time we went around on this, there was a sentiment of Who cares what we call it? My clients/co-workers don't care what it is, as long as I produce great designs. Let's just agree that what we do is a good thing, whether we label it ACD or UCD or whatever. While I agree that the outside world (that being the people who are not UX professionals) don't necessarily need to know whether something is called ACD or UCD, I think it's important that we're clear on what each approach is and how it differs. When most of go to a doctor with a serious ailment (say something nasty like pancreatic cancer), we just want to know that the surgical option our doctor chooses will work. We don't care whether it's a Total Pancreatectomy, a Distal Pancreatectomy, or a Whipple Procedure. If it makes the cancer go away and returns us to normal health, we're happy with whatever it was. However, I think we'd really want the surgical team to know which one it was. The preparation, tools, anesthesia requirements, pre-op prep, and post-op care all depend on the nature of the procedure. If the entire team of doctors, technicians, and nurses are not on board with exactly what procedure is happening, someone will do the wrong thing and a life can be put in at risk. (Not 'a life'. Our life!) While our work may not be as life and death as a surgical procedure, I think we still want to know what we're doing. We need to have a language that adequately describes our tools, techniques, and processes. That's why I think defining these things are important. This is why I dislike the current term-of-art User-Centered Design (or UCD). I'm betting that if you ask 10 UX professionals to define UCD in depth (going beyond designing with users in mind), you'll get 15 different definitions. (This is something I've put on UIE's research agenda to actually do, but we haven't gotten there yet. I'd really like to see what happens.) There is no clear field-wide understanding of what UCD is, which makes it very hard for us to compare notes and discuss possible alternatives, like ACD. In the previous discussion of ACD versus UCD on this list, the focus has been defined simply: Someone practicing ACD focuses on the activities of the design, where someone practicing UCD focuses on the users. Some have said that ACD minimizes the need of doing personas (a 'user-centered' activity) and just looks at the underlying activities that are obvious to the design result. For example, if designing a photo sharing site, one doesn't need to talk about whether the user is college age or prefers taking pictures of flowers, as someone might be inclined to fill out in the persona description. Instead, the activities are uploading pictures, sharing pictures, downloading various sizes, putting together a collection, etc. Look no further than the activities and you'll have a full list of items to put on your design plate. At least, that's my understanding of ACD. I'm sure someone will point out that I've gotten it all wrong, but that's where I'm starting from here. (I look forward to the correction.) So, given all this, here's where I think this ACD thing fits in: If one asserts that UCD is a collection of activities that go beyond ACD, looking at the goals, needs, and context of the user, beyond just that of the underlying activities, then I would say that ACD is... ... just a lazy man's UCD. Now, I'm hoping that all the ACD advocates out there won't take this the wrong way. Being lazy is pretty important. All the really good innovations in our lives have come from a dedication to laziness. I consider laziness, along with impatience and stubbornness, to be critical traits of an innovation leader. So, I applaud anyone who is creatively lazy, looking for ways reduce effort while producing more. To this end, you can put UCD and ACD in a scale of design approaches, which starts with: 0) Unintended Design: The design that results from teams that don't pay any attention to design. This is the true rubber-band-and-spit approach to creating things. Everything ends up with a design, but not every design is intentional. Some very lucky teams end up with successful unintended design, but the odds are against this. 1) Self Design: The design that results from teams that design purely for themselves. (This happens more with single-person teams than multiple-person teams.) This design approach has better odds of success than Unintended Design, but not by much (unless the designer is the only user, such as when a bachelor arranges the contents in their kitchen cabinets). This design approach is only informed by
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where that ACD thing fits
Jared, I see the choice between using ACD or UCD as being determined by whether or not the system (product, service etc) under design substantively and meaningfully addresses the needs of an homogeneous or heterogeneous community of users. In the case of the former - homogeneous - collection of users, with respect to the system, ACD is an appropriate choice; in the case of the latter, it seems to me that UCD would be the more appropriate choice. This may be an over-simplification of the choice on my part, and an arbitrary dichotomy, but this is how I see the use of each design approach playing out in practice. Best regards Steve -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal Consultant | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | Twitter: docbaty Blog: http://docholdsfourth.blogspot.com Contributor - UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com 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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where that ACD thing fits
On 10 Nov 2008, at 20:58, Jared Spool wrote: [snip] 3) Activity-Centered Design (ACD): The design that results from teams that only research the activities. Because research is part of the design process, it extends beyond Genius Design (which solely is based on the team's experience). This is necessary when the activities are new or foreign to the team. (For example, a team developing an application for consolidating personal finances when they've never thought about personal finances in any of their previous projects.) Activity-based research techniques, such as workflow diagrams and task-based usability tests would come in very handy to help inform the teams using this approach. 4) User-Centered Design (UCD): The design that results from teams that look beyond just the activities, to the goals, needs, and contexts of the users. Because usage is all about activity, this approach needs to have the activity at its core. (Early UCD definitions always included an essential task analysis phase -- something that's disappeared from the lexicon, but is still essential to this design. Task analysis is, as far as I can tell, research about activities, and thus the core research component of ACD.) This design approach is informed by techniques such as field research (ethnographic techniques) and persona creation, which help the team to see contextual items and goals. [snip] That's the thing that's always confused me about the UCD vs ACD discussions - I can't understand how you can separate activities/tasks from the understanding of the user context/goals. There always seems to be a little loop that I go around. Looking at the activities/tasks helps get deeper into the user/context. Understanding the users/context helps me get deeper into the activities/tasks. You find that one group of users is actually a couple of distinct archetypes. Then you see that a particular goal is subtly different for each of those two groups - and suddenly you have two different goals with different tasks. Which lets you dig into the users behaviour more. Repeat. I can't see how you can be activity-centred without being user centred. I can't see how you can be user-centred without being activity-centred. I'd love it if somebody who has a better understanding of ACD could explain to this particular bear of little brain. Cheers, Adrian (BTW - I _love_ the fact that genius design is the label for the middle of the scale :-) 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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where that ACD thing fits
While our work may not be as life and death as a surgical procedure, I think we still want to know what we're doing. We need to have a language that adequately describes our tools, techniques, and processes. That's why I think defining these things are important. Though our risks may not be life threatening, they are certainly real risks and likely financial risks (which can have direct impact on our employment status). Just wanted to point this out in case anyone thinks their job is less important because they don't get to kill someone if they screw up or don't care what their design approach is... In the previous discussion of ACD versus UCD on this list, the focus has been defined simply: Someone practicing ACD focuses on the activities of the design, where someone practicing UCD focuses on the users. First, the name of these two approaches doesn't help much in clarifying their application. Because ADC doesn't have user in the name doesn't mean it doesn't consider the user at all; it just focuses on the activities of a user, rather than their ultimate goals and needs (which is what UCD preaches). But I'm not going to get into that. ACD focuses on the activities of users, UCD focuses on goals and preferences of users. ACD focuses on user activities looking at them (and talking about them) from the system perspective (mostly - there are no absolutes); UCD looks at (and talks about) activities from the user perspective (mostly - there are no absolutes). I had to type and read this 5 times to make sure this made sense, but I think I am conveying the difference as I see it. Dan Saffer differentiates ACS and UCS in his Designing for Interaction book very similarly/succinctly. His best point is that the PURPOSE of an activity is not necessarily a user goal, meaning looking at a design problem with a user goal in mind may be too esoteric and not necessarily helpful (which is the pro argument for ACD). I agree with that. He also says sometimes user goals and purpose of activity can be the same. I also agree with that. To me these are determining factors in terms of choosing a design approach. How far removed from the ultimate user goal/ambition is the step/thing I need to design? The more layers of abstraction between the atomic tasks or set of tasks that represent an activity and the end goal for the user, more helpful a UCD approach. The less abstract/more direct, more helpful ACD. -- ACD usefulness grows focus on ACTIVITY focus on USER GOALS UCD usefulness grows -- If one asserts that UCD is a collection of activities that go beyond ACD, looking at the goals, needs, and context of the user, beyond just that of the underlying activities, then I would say that ACD is... ... just a lazy man's UCD. I think I agree with that statement. 0) Unintended Design: 1) Self Design: 2) Genius Design: 3) Activity-Centered Design (ACD): 4) User-Centered Design (UCD): 0 1 2 3 4 = Time spent learning about user. As you said, I don't think we can/could map success to this progression (even knowing all approaches have successes). I.E: in genius design, past experience may be a key success factor. I do think that the complexity of the system (not sure that's the best way to talk about it but...), meaning the 'distance' between the atomic tasks a user has to perform and the ultimate goal they are trying to accomplish, can help determine which is the best approach (and by best I meant the most likely to be successful). In trying to predict what approach would be most successful for a given situation in order to tell a team how to tackle a project, I'd start by taking a pass at trying to outline user end goals. For example: Trying to design a cappuccino maker. Goal: Drink coffee with x characteristics. It's a good, concrete, an fairly narrow *goal* that is not far removed from the *activity* of making coffee itself. I'd say, ACD would have better odds. For example: Trying to design a way for people to feel confident about their financial choices. It's a good, concrete, and fairly broad *goal* that is possibly very removed from the *activities* involved in making whatever financial choices are available to them. I'd say, UCD would have better odds. (An additional point: defining the problem you are trying to address is so key in determining the design approach, that because many start with fuzzy and unclear projects, they default to UCD because certain UCD methods are really good at clarifying things and help frame the problem you are trying to resolve). My argument was that UCD isn't the goal for teams -- instead, having a rich toolbox filled with techniques and tricks (that the team knows when and how to use) should be the goal. In my head, being able to choose the approach, ACD or UCD, is part of the idea of having a toolbox. If you start out as an ACD or UCD advocate in the
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where that ACD thing fits
Thanks, Jared. This really helps me to understand better where you were coming from in your IA Summit keynote. To me, the difference between UCD and ACD is mostly about WHEN, in the timeline of a project, you start doing your research. Let me give an example. Let's say my client is a financial institution. They come to me saying, We really want to target people who are setting up their first bank account. We're not sure how to make ourselves stand out, so what do you recommend?. At that stage in the process, I would definitely want to do UCD. I want to know what types of personas are creating their first bank account. What are their unmet needs? What do they want to do online with their bank account? What keywords are they searching for when they research bank accounts online? etc. I would begin with UCD. But consider another scenario. Let's say the same financial institution comes to me and says I want to create an online tool for people to check their balance, transfer money, and order more checks. In that case, I could just begin designing a solution that met those requirements. I wouldn't technically need to know more information about my users to execute on that request. The requirements have already been defined, so I would begin with ACD. The problem is that the tool I build may or may not solve anyone's real problem. I haven't gotten to the important questions, which are: - Why does the bank want to build this tool? (What is their business objective?) - What functions do the users want to be able to do? - Which functions are most important? - What would help this tool to stand out relative to the bank's competitors? And that's the nice thing about UCD. It puts us in the mindset that we are solving problems, not simply executing on a set of requirements. ACD seems to imply that the requirements are already known. And while someone may have a set of requirements in mind, they may not be the right ones. So would it be reasonable to say that ACD is the logical continuation of UCD? That is, after we understand our users' needs and wants, we can then define which activities the users need to perform, and then design a solution that enables those activities? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=35466 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
