Peter Boersma.

Jonas wrote:
> What Andrei does, if I read him correctly, is to identify a few of
> the things that are considered fundamental in design practice and
> scholarship within the design field -- craft skills to do with
> sketching, shaping and assessing -- and translate them to our tools
> and materials.

Or, in short: User Centered *Design*, not Engineering.

Peter -- Peter Boersma | Senior Interaction Designer | Info.nl http://www.peterboersma.com/blog | http://www.info.nl

Craig Pickering.

>
>In the latter case, there's usually an intention of creating some baseline that often can't be met because what's lacking is simply good designers on the job.

Good designers consistently do two things:

1) Define and understand the problem in relevant terms

2) Solve the problem elegantly

Which reminded of this cartoon to illustrate: http://stuffthathappens.com/blog/2008/03/05/simplicity/

Jonas Löwgren.

Jared provides a fine summary of the history of UCD. I believe the most important point to be that UCD is fundamentally rooted in usability, utility, goals and tasks -- most often work-related and externally motivated. Whether UCD concepts and the "UCD community" are capable of evolving with the times, towards designing for discretionary and hedonistic use of digital products and services in consumer cultures, is a point for debate. My personal opinion is that seems to be struggling, as witnessed for instance by the relatively small difference between CHI conferences from the early 90s and CHI conferences today. Institutions, including academic communities, have a way of permanenting themselves and their foundations (which is, of course, suitable in many ways but makes them less agile).

Jared closes his post, however, with a comment on Andrei's remark on Dreyfuss which I would like to respond to.

>
> You want to point to Dreyfuss as the model for UCD? Great! I'm all
>
> for it. Maybe we'll finally get people in this industry to stop
>
> complaining when asked to learn how to draw, using products like
>
> Photoshop and Illustrator in depth, code web standards markup,
>
> script behaviors and build prototypes of their products for a
>
> change. Sign me up.
>
>
>
> Seems like an excellent motivation for revisionist history. I'm all
> for it! Forget everything I said above. It was all Dreyfuss! :)

It may be important to point out that the UCD field, and specifically the CHI academic UCD community that Jared surveys, didn't pay any systematic attention to the design field before the mid or late 90s. There were isolated exceptions, of course, but on the whole it is fair to say that UCD went through its formative stages largely without input from industrial design, graphic design or architecture.

What Andrei does, if I read him correctly, is to identify a few of the things that are considered fundamental in design practice and scholarship within the design field -- craft skills to do with sketching, shaping and assessing -- and translate them to our tools and materials.

I support Andrei all the way in this move. And he also makes a valid point about what our field could learn from design, which UCD historically hasn't done. That is not the same as engaging in "revisionist history", in my opinion.

Nobody is trying to take anything away from the work of the UCD pioneers in the 70s and 80s, nor from what that work meant to the IT business at large and to the users.

Jonas Löwgren

Sachin Ghodke.

When I viewed what Oleh has done for Microsoft, it gave me the impression that I was looking at a table of contents / index of a book (no offense meant). A not so comfortable feeling when I was viewing it on the screen. This is my perception of the detailed (quite detailed) site map. But to be honest I feel it boils down to one thing - is it necessary? To my perception it is not, if the "navigation" (this certainly has many meanings after someone above mentioned so) is accurate. I would still say that the best use of site maps would be pre-development phase and use it as a tool among internal and external clients till the site goes live.

Also Search is good enough for any user to get a local website listing to narrow further. Ah! "search" its another discussion!

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss? post=33722

Joshua Seiden.

Hi Mary,

Thanks for your questions. I've actually just returned from Vancouver where the IxDA Board of Directors was meeting to plan our next conference (Interaction '09!) and to reaffirm our organizational mission. So your questions come at a good time.

Your question seems to be asking both about Interaction Design and the Interaction Design Association. So let me speak to the organization first.

The Interaction Design Association is a different kind of professional organization. From the beginning, it has been our mission to be an "un-organization." We do not charge membership dues. (And hopefully, we never will.) Instead, we rely on individual initiative, contribution, sharing, and self-organization as the primary means for us to achieve our goals. This means that we are a bottom-up organization. Want to make something happen on behalf of interaction design? Go ahead! Get some IxDA'ers together and do it. We place very limited constraints on our members activities: be passionate about interaction design; act on behalf of the community; make things better.

In the 3 years since our official birth, IxDA has grown from a simple mailing list into a global network of people and platforms. Our members meet online, in Local Face-to-Face meetings, and at our annual conference. Our members are self-selected passionate leaders who have chosen to commit their time and energy to a community that is passionate about interaction design.

Which brings us to your question about interaction design and the profession. IxDA has from the beginning chosen to take the position that interaction design is a discipline that lives under the umbrella of a broader field called User Experience. Within that statement though, there is a lot of room for discussion, discovery, and definition. IxDA recognizes that reasonable people within our field disagree: thus the organization has chosen to provide a platform for discussion and discovery, rather than providing an endorsement of a particular definition.

In the next couple of weeks, the IxDA Board of Directors will be rolling out some more information about the mission of our organization. Stay tuned...

Thanks, Josh Seiden President, IxDA Board of Directors

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss? post=33952

Kontra.

> Each time a common set of themes emerged: organizational imbalance,
> lack of shared understanding, resource constraints, and market
> dynamics.

These apply pretty much to *all* disciplines, not just to design or its sub-domains.

-- Kontra http://counternotions.com

Jared Spool.

On Oct 6, 2008, at 7:19 PM, Andrei Herasimchuk wrote:

> On Oct 6, 2008, at 3:46 PM, Peter Merholz wrote:
>
>
> While you're wailing and gnashing your teeth over wounded pride...
>
> If you'd like to get into a conversation over who can call the other
> snippy names or pontificate on motives in flowery language in
> attempt to belittle the other, I'll gladly take you up on that offer
> outside the confines of this list.

GIRL FIGHT! GIRL FIGHT! (It had to be said. With apologies to all the real girls out there.)

>
> Yes, good designers would do such things, and have for decades (as
>
> witnessed by Henry Dreyfuss' book, DESIGNING FOR PEOPLE, which, as
>
> far as I can tell, was the first book on UCD). But, the majority of
>
> designers *did not*, and clearly many felt it was necessary to
>
> distinguish their efforts from this majority.
>
> It's been like this for decades in the design profession, and well
> before Dreyfuss even wrote his book. And note that in Designing for
> People, Dreyfuss does a number of things well beyond what people
> consider UCD practice... like... building real, full scale working
> prototypes or doing competitive market research or finding ideas in
> completely unrelated solutions to other problems that have nothing
> to do with asking customers anything about anything.

Andrei is correct. UCD had nothing to do with Dreyfuss. I know, 'cause I was there.

For those who care, UCD was born on the engineering side. As I explained in my IA Summit Keynote (and revisiting in my upcoming UI13 Keynote -- register today at http://uiconf.com), UCD was a knee jerk reaction to the times -- those times being the late 1970s and early 1980s.

We're talking the days before real personal computers (yes, there were TRS-80s and Apple IIs, but they weren't being used in a business context yet). In those days, computers had a history of being designed for engineers and operators who would receive significant training for simple functionality. The operators of the computers didn't care about the data or, for that fact, the actual programs. They only cared about running the job, distributing the results, then running the next job. The computer itself didn't have to be easy to use or "user friendly" (the term of the day at that time), because the users were very well trained.

In the advent of "personal computing", (which happened with mini- computer time share systems and solo-purpose devices, such as word processing units -- remember the Wang 2200, the DEC WPS08, and the IBM Displaywriter? ), the focus shifted from trained operators that were uninterested in the data, only in the operation, to untrained 'users' that were very interested in the data and uninterested in the operation. This is where the movement for designing for users, which subsequently became user-centered design.

The key players here were John Gould & Jack Carroll at IBM, Ben Schneiderman at UMaryland, Marilyn Tremaine (I'm don't remember where she was at the time), John Whiteside & Dennis Wixon at DEC, Stu Card at Xerox, Ginny Redish & Joe Dumas at AIR, and a handful of others who I apologize for not remembering off hand. (I worked with the DEC team at the time. I'm sure Chauncey will produce a long list of people I've forgotten.) This was all pre-CHI, which had its first meeting in 1982 in Gaithersburg, where 970 people showed up, so it was well off the ground by then. (I didn't go to that, but I was at the second one in Boston the following year.)

The UCD movement was important because it gave us a way to talk with the stakeholders and engineering managers (development was an engineering discipline at the time) about how user interfaces needed to actually interface with users.

While many of us were aware of other design disciplines, they seemed way "out there". Aesthetics and form were far away from what we were trying to do in the early days. In those days, it was all about pure usability -- diagnosing frustration points, producing cognitive models that explained them, and coming up with a thinking that would get past that.

It wasn't until the late '80s and early '90s that people started thinking in terms of formative evaluation techniques as something that could be integrated into the development process. For example, it wasn't until '89 that we started talking about paper prototyping (based on work done by Laurie Vertelney at Apple) and its uses in a development process.

It wasn't until '87 that we saw an integration of visual design with UCD practice, from work presented at the CHI+GI conference in Toronto. (Allison Druin's Noobie came to mind. A life size doll with digital sensors, speech systems, and a video screen.)

So, UCD has predated most of the things we associate with UCD today. And it had nothing to do with design as we think of it today.

And that ends today's history lesson. I hope you took notes because this will all be on the final.

> You want to point to Dreyfuss as the model for UCD? Great! I'm all
> for it. Maybe we'll finally get people in this industry to stop
> complaining when asked to learn how to draw, using products like
> Photoshop and Illustrator in depth, code web standards markup,
> script behaviors and build prototypes of their products for a
> change. Sign me up.

Seems like an excellent motivation for revisionist history. I'm all for it! Forget everything I said above. It was all Dreyfuss! :)

Jared

Itamar Medeiros.

There was a very interesting post on Luke Wroblewski (are you reading this, Luke? ) entitled "Factors Limiting the Organizational Influence of Design" (http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/FunctioningForm/~3/405788516/entry.asp);

His conclusions are based on his experience of presenting the "Influencing Strategy by Design" workshop (http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp? 607) to over a hundred professional designers across the World including teams from India, Taiwan, Japan, Europe, China, Korea, and the United States. Each time, they started the course by asking attendees to share what factors they felt were limiting their organizational influence.

Each time a common set of themes emerged: organizational imbalance, lack of shared understanding, resource constraints, and market dynamics.

Organizational Imbalance % u2022 My organization often prioritizes monetization and revenue over user experience. Our focus is on sales not customers. % u2022 The business units and product managers in my organization are responsible for most product decisions -not the design team % u2022 In my organization, short -term gains are often prioritized over long-term gains % u2022 Poor User Experience is not a gating factor for launching products % u2022 I% u2019m unaware of how the decision making process in my organization really works % u2022 There is a lack of respect between product management, design, engineering, marketing, and other functional teams % u2022 The design team is not involved in longer, more strategic projects the way we are in short term projects. Lack of Shared Understanding % u2022 People in my organization do not understand the of value of design % u2022 Our design organizations do not have a common process or method of scoping our work % u2022 Information exchange is difficult because we have distributed teams % u2022 The design team is not interested in the broader responsibilities required for strategic influence % u2022 The business goals behind our products and initiatives are unclear % u2022 Design is seen as less important than just getting something built % u2022 My design team needs a better understanding of the business perspective behind products Resources % u2022 We do not have enough people or time to be strategic. There% u2019s too much other work to be done % u2022 We have a lack of senior contributors who can do strategic work on our team % u2022 Our team has limited access to data, and research that could help build support for our strategic ideas % u2022 My organization outsources a lot of our design efforts % u2022 We lack engineering and instrumentation support for our strategic work Market Dynamics % u2022 In my organization, the emphasis is on time to market % u2022 There is a lack of consumer enthusiasm for my company in the marketplace % u2022 Our top position in the marketplace leads to complacency % u2022 My organization faces increased competition % u2022 Our work is allows compared to or a reaction to the market leader

{ Itamar Medeiros } Information Designer designing clear, understandable communication by caring to structure, context, and presentation of data and information

mobile ::: 86 13671503252 website ::: http://designative.info/ aim ::: itamarlmedeiros skype ::: designative

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss? post=33964

Chris Noessel.

Aside from hate on User Centered Design, and perhaps more seriously, the looming global economy crisis, I'm interesting in hearing what IxDAers think are the largest problems facing the IxD practice today. Anyone have any thoughts?

Chris

Stay up to date on your PC, the Web, and your mobile phone with Windows Live. http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/msnnkwxp1020093185mrt/direct/01/

Paul Turner.

Hi all,

"We're looking for double threat: interaction design and visual design."

"We're looking for stronger visual skills."

"What's interaction design? "

"What widgets have you created? "

Do these snippets sound familiar, yet?

I'm about to start my formal training in graphic/visual design at The New England Institute of Art (http://www.artinstitutes.edu/boston.

Starts 30 October 08 in Brookline MA.

Yours in lifeboat learning,

Paul Turner Interaction Design

Andrei Herasimchuk.

On Oct 6, 2008, at 3:46 PM, Peter Merholz wrote:

> While you're wailing and gnashing your teeth over wounded pride...

If you'd like to get into a conversation over who can call the other snippy names or pontificate on motives in flowery language in attempt to belittle the other, I'll gladly take you up on that offer outside the confines of this list.

> Yes, good designers would do such things, and have for decades (as
> witnessed by Henry Dreyfuss' book, DESIGNING FOR PEOPLE, which, as
> far as I can tell, was the first book on UCD). But, the majority of
> designers *did not*, and clearly many felt it was necessary to
> distinguish their efforts from this majority.

It's been like this for decades in the design profession, and well before Dreyfuss even wrote his book. And note that in Designing for People, Dreyfuss does a number of things well beyond what people consider UCD practice... like... building real, full scale working prototypes or doing competitive market research or finding ideas in completely unrelated solutions to other problems that have nothing to do with asking customers anything about anything.

That's the whole point. You can't grab one piece of the puzzle and ignore the others. Which is what people in this industry do for God knows what reason.

You want to point to Dreyfuss as the model for UCD? Great! I'm all for it. Maybe we'll finally get people in this industry to stop complaining when asked to learn how to draw, using products like Photoshop and Illustrator in depth, code web standards markup, script behaviors and build prototypes of their products for a change. Sign me up.

> Gah. Why am I contributing to this? Is this really the crucial topic
> of our field?

Obviously, it appears you have your own ego invested in it as well.

-- Andrei Herasimchuk

Principal, Involution Studios innovating the digital world

e. andrei at involutionstudios.com c. +1 408 306 6422

Peter Merholz.

> I've disliked the term UCD for so long because to even consider the
> term, one has to reconsider what it is that I do as a designer at a
> tactical level because the premise is that I don't know what it is
> that I do.

While you're wailing and gnashing your teeth over wounded pride, it's worth nothing that the term and philosophy of UCD had to be coined because at some point "design", as it was widely understood, meant styling, aesthetics, and personal expression of the designer's sense of cool and nothing else. We've all seen too many "designed" things that clearly did not involve an understood of use, context, behavior, and motivation.

Yes, good designers would do such things, and have for decades (as witnessed by Henry Dreyfuss' book, DESIGNING FOR PEOPLE, which, as far as I can tell, was the first book on UCD). But, the majority of designers *did not*, and clearly many felt it was necessary to distinguish their efforts from this majority.

Gah. Why am I contributing to this? Is this really the crucial topic of our field?

--peter

USABILITY MEDIC.

Norman,

Assuming you really want to stay at such a short sighted org, And assuming you think you still have a shot to change their minds, you may want to tap into Jeff Patton (Agile expert).

He spoke at IxD 08 and from what I recall from his session...developers do not really do the design. There's still point person (am not sure of title) who communicates to the developers and who must me very,very clear about what's needed.

I could be remembering wrong but definitely tap into Jeff or his body og work.

Sent from my iPhone On Oct 5, 2008, at 1:44 PM, "Brett Lutchman"<brettlutchman at gmail.com
> wrote:

> Norman: "Advice on how I might "prove" that interaction design and
> developer is not the same role if this ever gets to court."
>
> Norman,
> whatever the outcome, be prepared for a blessing in disguise.
> The first thing that stands out to me in regards to the differences
> between
> an interaction designer and a developer is the interpersonal,
> interactive
> transactions between all involved delegates for the purposes of
> extracting
> information.
>
> When I think 'interaction designer' I think of someone who is
> seeking to
> install a vision and bring business value-add by developing
> relationships
> with BAs, clients, customers and our client's customers. IDs are
> usually the
> master of all trades and jack of none.
>
> Upon hearing 'developer' I think of someone who receives approved
> information for the purpose of preparing a platform for this vision
> to be
> built upon.
>
> Focus on the many levels and facets of queries that are needed to
> complete
> your job.
> It is my experience that developers usually stay late at work above
> most job
> types because of the complex issues they have to deal with to find a
> solution for the vision. I don't see any extra time allotted from
> developers
> for the purpose of contributing to an agile process of design (with no
> one-person in place for this).
>
>
> Norman: They want to work in a more "agile" fashion with all
> developers
> doing the design and working with customers.
>
> We obviously don't buy this.
> You may have to get your hands dirty on this one. Try to develop a
> persona
> on developers. One item that is very powerful in court is a person's
> reputation.
>
> *<Grain of Salt
>*
> In my personal opinion, I don't see developers having the savvy
> interpersonal passion to link hearts with clients to see their (the
> client's) vision come to pass. Our trade is very unique. We stand in
> front

Judah J. Gould.

Who, Christina, what a strange and in my opinion, ridiculous, article by Don Norman. He writes under "What Adapts? Technology or People? " that it's some kind of corollary that technology comes first, then humans adapt. He writes about the clock (and watch):

"An arbitrary division of the year and day into months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, and seconds, all according to physical principles that differ from psychological or biological ones, now rules our lives. We eat when our watches tell us it is meal time, not when we are hungry. We awake according to the harsh call of the alarm, not when we are rested. University classes are taught in one hour periods, three times a week, in 10 % u2013 15 week sessions, not because this is good for education, but because it makes for easier scheduling. The extreme reliance on time is an accidental outgrowth of the rise of the factory and the resulting technological society."

---

That's nice and all, but UX professionals aren't designing "time", they are designing *solutions*, whether they be online or offline. So, to use an example of industrial design, when a "time"-keeping product is launched without paying attention to the user, you end up with something as craptacular as this:

http://goodexperience.com/2008/08/broken-alarm-clock-de.php

But hey, it still tells time, right?

Andrei Herasimchuk.

I was just handed this book today by one of our interns here. It is quite frankly, a great book and I'm adding it to the list.

Design Sketching, Umea Institute of Design, by Erik Olofsson and Klara Sjolen http://designsketching.com/

-- Andrei Herasimchuk

Principal, Involution Studios innovating the digital world

e. andrei at involutionstudios.com c. +1 408 306 6422

Andrei Herasimchuk.

On Oct 6, 2008, at 2:11 PM, Christina Wodtke wrote:

> this may be the most notable
> http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/human-centered.html

The trick to all this -- imho -- is understanding what a good designer actually does. Regardless if that designer is designing cars, clothes, products or systems.

Ultimately, good design is not about UCD, ACD, genius design, waterfall, agile or whatever label you want to put it on. Those are all marketing terms in the end, some trying to describe a process that exists, while others are trying to define a process when one does not exist because the people on the job are lacking in some respect. In the latter case, there's usually an intention of creating some baseline that often can't be met because what's lacking is simply good designers on the job.

Good designers consistently do two things:

1) Define and understand the problem in relevant terms 2) Solve the problem elegantly

Once you get that, the rest is just meddling for little value in return.

I've disliked the term UCD for so long because to even consider the term, one has to reconsider what it is that I do as a designer at a tactical level because the premise is that I don't know what it is that I do. At best, the terms UCD and ACD are redundant to what is already happening or should be happening. At worst, those labels become misapplied marketing speak that does nothing but muddy the waters.

-- Andrei Herasimchuk

Principal, Involution Studios innovating the digital world

e. andrei at involutionstudios.com c. +1 408 306 6422

Christina Wodtke.

this may be the most notable http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/human-centered.html

On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 9:28 AM, Ben Bashford <bashford at gmail.com
> wrote:

> Can someone provide links to any articles that illustrate this "hate-on"?
>
> On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 5:16 PM, Kurt Krumme <krumme at gmail.com
> wrote:
>
>
> I don't know that there's a hate-on in progress, but I do think that
>
> there is a spirited debate, and a much-needed one.
>
>
>
> My problem is with the term User Centered Design itself. I agree
>
> that it's become over generalized. But every time I hear it, I ask
>
> myself, "As opposed to what"?
>
>
>
> In my work, I define design as the practice of defining goals and
>
> problems and then working to solve them. (note: I'm only speaking
>
> practically, I'm not trying to define design in its entirety for
>
> everyone) If you're building a web site, how could you do anything
>
> other than put the user and their interaction with the site first and
>
> foremost in every decision? Like many things in our industry, I
>
> think that people tend to introduce jargon in an attempt to
>
> legitimize the field. If it sounds fancy, it must be good!
>
>
>
> In my opinion it's just design, plain and simple.
>
>
>
>
>
> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
>
> Posted from the new ixda.org
>
> http://www.ixda.org/discuss? post=33885
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!
>
> To post to this list ... discuss at ixda.org
>
> 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 ... discuss at ixda.org
> Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe
> List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines
> List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
>

Robert Hoekman Jr.

>
> seconded.

Thirded. (That so should be a word.)

BTW, without a designer (or someone trained in design approaches) they will
> make the mistake of turning customer requests into non-viable products.

Seconded.

-r-

Jared Spool.

On Oct 6, 2008, at 1:23 PM, mark schraad wrote:

> (at least I think the Times is
> mainstream)

You &amp; Sarah Palin

Jared Spool.

[Apologies for any duplication]

Greetings,

The User Interface 13 Conference is next week and I wanted you to have a chance to save $1000 by registering now and avoiding the walk-in price. If you've thought about signing up, this is the time.

Sessions are filling up and we want you to get the latest insights on today's design techniques. On-line registration ends tomorrow, October 7. After Tuesday, we can only accept in-person registrations at the walk-in rate. If you register now, you can still register for $2890 for the full conference or $875 for a single day.

That means you need to register now and save $1000 at http://www.uiconf.com

Don't miss this final opportunity to attend 4 days filled with insights from the field's greatest design and usability experts. No where else can you get these in-depth, full-day seminars:

+ Scott Berkun - Implementing Innovation + Dana Chisnell - Discount Usability Testing + Andrew Crow and Peter Merholz - Product Design Strategies + Kim Goodwin - Interaction Design + Jeremy Keith - Designing with Ajax + Donna (Maurer) Spencer - Information Architecture Foundations + Jeff Patton - Merging User Experience with Agile Development + Christine Perfetti - Product Usability Survival Techniques + Jared Spool (that's me!) - New Perspectives in UX Design + Luke Wroblewski - Effective Visual Design

Special Offer: I've arrange for IxDA list readers to receive a special discount. Use the promotion code UIE when you register and receive $30 off of each day's price.

Hope to see you at the conference,

Jared M. Spool

p.s. Remember, use the UIE promotion code to get an additional $30 off of each day's price when you register at http://uiconf.com