On 10 Nov 2008, at 20:58, Jared Spool wrote:
[snip]
3) Activity-Centered Design (ACD): The design that results from
teams that only research the activities. Because research is part of
the design process, it extends beyond Genius Design (which solely is
based on the team's experience). This is necessary when the
activities are new or foreign to the team. (For example, a team
developing an application for consolidating personal finances when
they've never thought about personal finances in any of their
previous projects.) Activity-based research techniques, such as
workflow diagrams and task-based usability tests would come in very
handy to help inform the teams using this approach.
4) User-Centered Design (UCD): The design that results from teams
that look beyond just the activities, to the goals, needs, and
contexts of the users. Because usage is all about activity, this
approach needs to have the activity at its core. (Early UCD
definitions always included an essential "task analysis" phase --
something that's disappeared from the lexicon, but is still
essential to this design. Task analysis is, as far as I can tell,
research about activities, and thus the core research component of
ACD.) This design approach is informed by techniques such as field
research (ethnographic techniques) and persona creation, which help
the team to see contextual items and goals.
[snip]
That's the thing that's always confused me about the UCD vs ACD
discussions - I can't understand how you can separate activities/tasks
from the understanding of the user context/goals.
There always seems to be a little loop that I go around. Looking at
the activities/tasks helps get deeper into the user/context.
Understanding the users/context helps me get deeper into the
activities/tasks.
You find that one group of users is actually a couple of distinct
archetypes. Then you see that a particular goal is subtly different
for each of those two groups - and suddenly you have two different
goals with different tasks. Which lets you dig into the users
behaviour more. Repeat.
I can't see how you can be activity-centred without being user
centred. I can't see how you can be user-centred without being
activity-centred. I'd love it if somebody who has a better
understanding of ACD could explain to this particular bear of little
brain.
Cheers,
Adrian
(BTW - I _love_ the fact that "genius design" is the label for the
middle of the scale :-)
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