Have only recently joined the list and have found the discussions on here very interesting, so bear with me if I am way off the mark. However, looking back through recent posts and watching some video lectures posted on interaction design blogs, there seems to be some what of an us/them gap between software developers and interaction designers.
As an outsider looking in, this relationship has equivalents in other fields, particularly architecture. The parallels are that interaction designers can be thought of as the architect and the developer as the structural engineer. In simplified terms, the architect does the designs in CAD, which they bring a structural engineer, who then has to make the building stay up. Like the interaction designer and the developer, its a trying relationship, where the architect often feels their vision for a building is compromised by the structural engineer. However, this problem is solved when using a Spanish trained architect as they are also structural engineers. Spanish architects are engineers with design training or designers with engineering training, which ever way you want to look at it. When a Spanish architect goes to a structural engineer with a design and the ever safe playing structural engineer sees something that is tricky to do and says "thats column needs to be moved out of there" they can trump the statement with sound structural calculations, where as the architect lacking structural engineering training, grumbles and goes back and makes changes to the plan, with the end result that they feel their design has been compromised. By training the architecture as a structural engineer, the dynamic of the traditional architect/engineer relationship has changed. The engineer respects the architects opinion as a peer. The architect can also create better buildings as they can push the limits of the construction but don't break them, thus the architects vision almost never needs to be changed. Getting back to the developer/IX designer relationship, I feel a lot of the problems can be solved by the IX designer getting training in software development and learning the ins and outs of the interface framework, be that QT or what ever. I had a look at some of the syllabus for IX courses and they don't seem to include computer programming or graphics frameworks and until they do, we will end up in the same situation as the non structural engineering trained architects. In Europe, if you put programming on a design course syllabus, as you can imagine the up take for the course deceases immediately, so they don't. Universities over here are as much about getting people on seats as providing industry with suitable professionals. But thats a whole other subject! On 13 Apr 2008, at 04:11, Oleh Kovalchuke wrote: > > Drucker is right, he describes the way the economy works in a > desire-fuelled corporate society (the US, especially post WWII). > > ----- > > Why developers are like politicians, when they refer to generic > "user": > They use the term (those, who do) out of > > 1) arrogance > 2) insecurity > 3) for control > > -- three closely related motives. > > Relevant quotes from the Chomsky's lecture (Part 2): > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVgEQmwb2LA > > "The specialized class, the responsible men do the thinking, planning, > understand the common interest. The 'bewildered herd', they have a > function > too -- to be spectators... The compelling moral principle behind > it: The > mass of the public is too stupid to be able to understand things..." > > -- > Oleh > ________________________________________________________________ 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
