Well, that kinda sucks they continue beating a certain flavor of UCD to death. One key concept of UCD, to me, is there is never a magic formula for doing it. Everything, as with any form of design, is a matter of context - goals, resources, time, etc. I've used personas throughout 5% of my career doing UCD - hardly ever. The fact of the matter is they are not needed. Heck, UCD is not *needed*. BUT it is a proven way to deliver very high quality designs that maximize business value across the board. I'm not saying it's the only way. My experience has been that personas have only been useful as a sales vehicle to execs and other stakeholders. Obviously others on this list disagree.
So, whatever you want to call it, practicing good research and using that to drive design is an excellent practice, in my book. And good research doesn't mean long, expensive research that results in a 900 page findings document that no one will ever read. Take the next design you create for one of your clients to a coffee shop and buy someone a non-fat double mocha whatever the heck in exchange for completing a few tasks with one of your prototypes. You'll learn something, and it will cost $12.95 or however much Starbucks charges for a cup of java these days. Name one company you've worked for that can't afford a cup of coffee. Ok, you probably can, but you see my point. There are realistic research options for you. If anyone tells you personas or any other deliverable has to be done, they've had too much starbucks caffeine :-) My opinion is not that companies don't have the time and resources to do UCD - they don't have the time and resources *not* to do it. It's a heck of a lot more expensive to design in a black hole than it is to conduct good research and then throw your design chops on top of that. That is true the vast majority of the time - certainly not always. If you can show a company how to consistently create top notch UX at a cheaper cost than producing non-research driven products and services, you've really done your job as a designer. Again, not saying UCD is a prerequisite to quick development, smooth approvals from stakeholders, good UX, cheap support costs, etc etc. Just most of the time. Sorry - obviously the last thing you want to hear is another UCD soapbox. But I think there is UCD that can be practiced in any situation, any budget, etc. As far as usage centered design, I only know enough about it to think it's not that great, that's just my opinion. I just threw it out there as an example of a choice you have as a designer. Jeff On Nov 27, 2007 7:59 PM, Robert Hoekman, Jr. <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > I feel like we do have choices Robert. There's UCD, under that > > umbrella are tons of tools, techniques etc at your disposal - no one > > is saying there is one way to conduct UCD. > > Lots of people on this list have said similar things, but then many continue > beating the persona stick to death as thought it's the only sound solution. > It just gets so exhausting. > > And yes, one could say that I'm only stressing myself out by arguing about > it all the time, but most of the time, I think it's a battle worth fighting. > UCD is simply unrealistic in a huge number of situations and we need to be > able to help the rest of the designers out there do effective work even when > they can't practice UCD the way we talk about it. > > > There's also usage centered > > design. > > From what I know, usage centered design isn't all that different than ACD, > so it's interesting that your bring that up. Has anyone here practiced usage > centered design? How does that process look? Does it involve personas? What > are the deliverables? > > > Or you can come up with ideas and design them based on your expertise > > as a designer and never ever do customer research. If your idea fails > > because you spent all your capital or resources developing a feature > > that no one uses or sees or understands anyway, that would be a shame. > > Bad UX can cripple the best product or service concept. UCD is a > > proven way to deliver high quality UX. > > Proven only in certain situations, as practiced by certain people. It's not > fool-proof by any means. > > > What is it you feel is missing? > > It's not that it's missing anything, it's that it *adds* a whole lot of > stuff that most teams just don't have time to deal with and is largely > unnecessary in many situations. > > UCD - personas/scenarios in particular - work really well for consulting > firms and companies with money to burn. But personally, I have yet to work > with or for a company that has had the time, resources, or money to deal > with it. They want it now, and they want it great. At the root of what I > advocate is this simple fact. > > All I want to do is find a method that helps people in those situations > instead of continuing to shove UCD and personas down everyone's throats when > it clearly cannot work in a huge percentage of projects. > > -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
