The difference between designers and developers

I've always been rather sceptical about the difference between designers and
developers. I assume that is to do with the fact that I come from a
development background.

However a discussion I had with a developer today has change my views about
this and though I'd share it with you.

A developer has created a time component for a reminder page which splits
the time up into hours and mins, as it was discovered in a product pilot
that the users had a problem with a single drop down containing all the
times at 30min intervals. I was asked what the default value should be, the
developer's idea was to put the words "Select time..." in the top of the
drop down list to force them to change it. My idea was that as the users
goal was to setup a reminder it should default to a realistic time (such as
now or somewhere between 9 and 5 which seems a more likely time for a
reminder) from which they could select a more appropriate time (I also
believed that this idea would work for single drop down list box!).

The developer was bemused because in his opinion some of the users may just
accept the default time we provided rather than setting their own time, by
providing a word such as select they would be forced to change it.

To me this shows a lack of understanding of the underlying user goal. Why
would the user go to setup a reminder but not change the time of the
reminder?

I'm sure you've all had similar experiences, but how in the absence of hard
metrics can you bridge the gulf of understanding between developers and
designers? I suppose a further question is should you?

Regards

Matt Goddard


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