Re: The difference between designers and developers

Todd said:
"Designers concentrate on look-and-feel. A designer's goal is to create
environments and interactions that the audience has an emotional or
tactical connection to. They typically achieve this through good
interaction design, usability practices, and visual appeal. They're
often concerned with things like colour, font, screen placement, naming
conventions, etc."

Todd, can you clarify if you're asserting this as a general observation, or
whether you would condone this attitude please? I would like to know whether
to take umbrage at being lumped into this definition.

Matthew said:
"However, my concern about not having the metrics to backup the core
principle of the argument must still stand. Even if I was to say "Alison
would do this..", I would be assuming a persona without knowing for definite
(even though I might have an feeling, or educated guess) that the people
Alison is supposed to represents would behave in a certain way."

I think this is where the usability professional comes into the arena as a
champion that ideally sits on a project team permanently. I mean someone who
tests with users on a regular basis and keeps in constant touch with what
different user archetypes are and are not capable of. Unless you have this
experience under your belt and are keeping it current, you will invariably
be making a 'best guess' about what a persona can or cannot do.

Hard evidence and facts to validate your decisions as you make them is a
white elephant. A user test is the only real measure of your interface's
ability to communicate with the user. This by nature means that your
evidence is retrospective. Making improvements to an interface through
iterative development and testing is the only practical way to ensure you're
doing the right thing.


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]




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