> I did elaborate when we talked about it here: http://ixda.org/ > discuss.php?post=13134 (scroll down to December 26 at 2:44pm). My > opinion hasn't changed in 11 months.
This (hybrid) quote from you is, I think, the heart of it: "An example would be the activity of ordering a blood test in a pediatric ICU. Here, the activity is done most commonly by nurses, but occasionally by doctors themselves. [...]" "[...] I guess I don't see how you get to the activities of an interface used in a foreign setting (such as a pediatric ICU) without some sort of research. And I don't think you're suggesting designers just guess based on what they've seen on Grey's Anatomy." Indeed. I'm not saying you can just magically design great things all the time without research, I'm saying that *people* don't have to be the heart of the research. Sure, on an occasion like your hospital example, talking to users would probably be the best way to find out how an activity is performed (because you can't perform it yourself), and I've advocated talking to users in situations like this (repeatedly, mind you). But I don't believe for a second that you need a persona to understand or to document the activity. You do need something to document the activity, but I don't see how a persona is the best way to do this. I also believe that in a huge percentage of cases, you can learn about the activity without locating and interviewing representative users. Perhaps not in a hospital situation like the one you mentioned, but in many other situations for sure. And these cases are where my argument shows its benefits: you can very often study the activity in half the time it takes to locate and interview all those users. In your example, how different, exactly, is the process of ordering a blood test going to be when you're a doctor as opposed to a nurse? Assuming both have the authority to do so, the process would be, well, identical, would it not? If the nurse doesn't have the authority and needs a doctor's approval, then one step in the process changes. The elements of the activity are pretty dern stable compared to the roles the two personas play. I know I'm never going to "win" an argument like this with you, so all this rhetoric is probably pointless. I'm just so tired of hearing about the "magic bullet" that is the notion of personas when I have yet to find a company that uses them, and yet to find a situation where I have been unable to succeed without them. Heck - you could barely find a company that does them *well* (only 5% you say?), so how can you be such an advocate for their use? We need the labels so we know what the hell we're talking about when > we talk amongst ourselves. Hehe ... I'll give you that one. ;) Sometimes, they know who their users > are, but don't know much about the activities those users are engaged > in. Sometimes they don't know who the users are. > So, is your argument that it just doesn't matter what we call it or what we focus on? This statement is a bit confusing. Again, my whole point here is that there is a huge percentage of teams that can't, for whatever reason, function the way many of the people on this list think they should. And personally, as a community, I think we should try to help them by figuring out how they can do great work without these tools and processes. Find something that works for them in those situations. Would we rather let bad design fly in every case these tools can't be used, or would we rather find solutions that help those designers who can't rely on UCD processes? -r- ________________________________________________________________ *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
