Re: UI Design/UCD at Software Conferences?

At 11:26 AM 10/11/2004 +0100, William Hudson wrote:
>I'm giving a half-day
>tutorial on user-centred design but what I
>am pretty startled by is the relative dearth of tutorials on user
>interface and user-centred design.
>
>Given that tutorials at HCI conferences like CHI don't usually address
>the nitty-gritty of actual UI design, and that software development
>conferences don't seem to either


William,

I wonder exactly what you mean by "nitty-gritty of actual UI design". You 
could mean detailed page or screen layout and interaction, but you could 
also mean defining requirements and features.

The confusion between these two meanings for the single word design (high 
scope: design as context/decisions and detailed scope: design as 
craft/interpretation) makes it very difficult for UCD practitioners to talk 
to related fields.

I see a lot of presentations and tutorials on the "big" UCD, but few on the 
details of interaction design.

As an example, the UPA2004 tutorials included several on how to bring a 
user-focus to making the conceptual design decisions:

- Scenario-Powered Design and Evaluation - Lynch and Palmetier

- Interaction Design Meets Agility: Practicing Collaborative Usage-Centered 
Design in Agile Software Development Projects - Patton

- User Requirements: Collection, Data Interpretation, and Presentation - 
Baxter and Courage

- Collecting and Using Customer Stories for UI Design: Blending Users, 
Tasks, and Environments - Rauch and Macomber


I also wonder why you are not raising this question on a broader list, such 
as UTEST?


Whitney Quesenbery
Whitney Interactive Design, LLC
w. www.WQusability.com
e. whitneyq at wqusability.com
p. 908-638-5467

UPA  - www.usabilityprofessionals.org
STC Usability SIG: www.stcsig.org/usability





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