Re: Heresy!

I know a fairly well respected person in the industry, who has started championing 'Designer Centred Design' which has the hackles on the back of my neck standing up.

This person's rationale is that as designers of interaction (or insert related job title), its our job to know what users can and can't do, not to ask them what they can and can't do (through testing or other means). This may appeal to the inner self-indulgent and lazy designer that I beat into remission some 4 years ago. But it does raise a few interesting points for the designer I am today.

Here's one...

If we're always asking for validation from our user base on everything we do from project start to project finish, where does innovation come into the frame? Surely if we are always making design choices based on what users can and cannot do, how do we introduce new (and preferrably learnable) mental models into our user's psychy? Does making something usable and understandable first and foremost, trounce any inspiration that may yield 'weird' or shall we say 'innovative' ways of defining a system model?

Does this get anyone else in knots?

Anthony Colfelt
  Senior Designer | BBCi Development & Services
    6th Floor | Bush House - NW | Strand | London WC2B 4PH
      PH: 0207 557 3471 | MOB: 0779 617 4878
        [email protected]

> ----------
> From:         Johan Berndtsson
> Reply To:     Johan Berndtsson
> Sent:         Friday, September 12, 2003 07:10 pm
> To:   [email protected]
> Subject:      Re: Heresy!
>
> Hi Ralph,
>
> Of course it does not. There is lots of interactive art which is not in
> any way based on user research. It still takes interaction design to
> design interactive products. I would even go so far as to argue that
> interaction design is always done when an interactive product is
> developed, but it is not always done by an "interaction designer". And
> this might be what you are looking for. I would gess that most people
> who call themselves "interaction designers", as opposed to "artists" or
> "system developers" have at least one foot in user centered design.
>
> /Johan
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: User-centred design, user interface design, web design, HCI and
> usability [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Lord, Ralph
> Sent: den 12 september 2003 17:00
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Heresy!
>
>
> I am certain this communication from me may seem unpolished and informal
> in that we have not yet met. Be assured that your email was given me by
> a member of the international committee for email popularity as a
> distinguished person who may be interested in my trustworthy proposal.
>
> Oh, ha, ha, enough of the faux email scam drivel.  However, if you want
> to send me a bank account number...
>
> Here's what I really want to discuss:
>
> "Does Interaction Design have to be user-centered?"
>
> In doing a little googling on the matter, it seems that most people
> define interaction design as requiring some kind of user research, CI,
> ethnography, whatever.  But is that a characteristic of ID or just
> user-centered ID? What about ID that is based on existing use-cases,
> actor lists, and such from the development team or the analysts. Does
> that qualify?
>
> Ralph Lord
>
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