How precisely do you have to define a general approach to product development? In the early days of "Usability Engineering" we looked at the key principles of stakeholder involvement, quantiative usability goals, user involvement, iterations of design and evaluation, and comparison against the goals (when you meet the goals, you ship). Within this framework (and we used "framework" to avoid debates about whether specific methods like contextual inquiry, think-aloud testing, interviews, or surveys were the best methods given the constraints).
Within this Usability Engineering framework, a multitude of methods could be used (appropriately or inappropriately) so I think that we do get into trouble when we start equating UCD to a small set of our favorite methods. Can we agree on the general approach to UCD? Chauncey On Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 10:42 PM, Jared Spool <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I think the problem is that UCD means whatever people want it to mean. And > that's often, "You're not doing things the way I think they should be done, > so you're not doing UCD." > > Personally, my argument is that we've never been able to define it with any > rigor and, therefore, it quickly becomes useless when we try to make sure > we're all on the same page. > > It's not so much *hate* for me as a desire to find a vocabulary that means > the same thing to everyone. > > Jared > > On Oct 5, 2008, at 10:35 PM, Christina Wodtke wrote: > >> Lately a lot of senior folks seem to be railing on user-centered design. >> Now, I thought UCD was the idea of putting the users in the center of the >> design choices. To do that, you can do it with a bunch of methodologies, >> or >> visit the users in their native habitat then keep them in mind later, or >> invite them to pick up a pencil and draw you some interfaces somewhere >> along >> the way. And none of these seem like a particularly bad practice when done >> in context of what you are trying to accomplish. With search, everyone is >> your user and you do search log analysis and a-b testing, when you design >> an >> internal ap you talk to your users, design for them and htey get to sign >> off. Consumer internet for multiple user types can often benefit from >> research, user segmentation and various sorts of testing. Sometimes >> personas >> are usful, sometimes task analysis... sometimes self-gratification is the >> right call when you and the user are the same. It's all UCD to me. So why >> the backlash? It feels like a backlash against love songs, sandwiches or >> democracy. >> >> Or perhaps I'm merely semanticly sloppy, and the backlash is against the >> 32 >> step persona to particpatory prototype system(TM)? >> >> On Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 9:08 AM, Jared Spool <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> >>> >>> >>> We've started sharing some of it in our presentations (such as in my IA >>> Summit keynote here: http://is.gd/3ynf). >>> >>> >> ________________________________________________________________ >> 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 > > ________________________________________________________________ > 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 > ________________________________________________________________ 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
