> > I think that's perfectly valid and makes a lot of sense. Why do research > when you already know what you need to know
Precisely! I also talk to users about the activity when it's outside my domain and is something I can't research on my own. This doesn't happen often in my particular case, but when it does, obviously you need to reach out to people who do perform the activity to study it. The difference is also a mindset difference. Instead of focusing on goals and such, I focus just on the details of the activity—how it's performed, how it breaks down into tasks and actions and operations, etc. The distinction may be subtle, but I find it changes the way I approach the research pretty substantially. Did you know that Joshua Porter also appears to subscribe to the tao of ACD? I find that particularly interesting, since he's one of your former disciples. Where the question, at least for me, comes down is how do you know when to > trust your gut? Do you have a gut sense as to when your gut sense is good > enough? (Would that be meta-gut?) The only time this fails for me is when I'm hungry. My meta-gut gets confused. :) Eh—it's all very subjective. There's no way to be sure either way that you do or don't need user research to get a handle on an activity. Sometimes, you do it and find out you didn't need to. Sometimes, the opposite. You have to trust your instincts. -r- ________________________________________________________________ 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
