Jared, So just after you have got everybody reading about Activity Theory, now you are getting them to read up about Functionalism :-) So we now have as basis of design. UCD, SCD, ACD, and now FCD.
Functionalism is an interesting an idea to use for design. see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functionalism_(sociology)<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functionalism_%28sociology%29>and I believe it could be a good time to revisit it. Functionalism went out of fashion in the 70's because it was viewed as a method that was not predictive. Functionalism should be a faster method to use compared to Grounded Theory, if its limitations can be overcome. Malinowski (one of the founders of Ethnography) used it to analyse his Ethnography of the Trobriand Islanders. The interesting point with Malinowski and functionalism is that Malinowski viewed Anthropology as the study of how people related to each other with objects. The object could be a church, or a fetish, or even a table. It would be interesting if we look at how his methods could be related to a computer, or even a virtual object such as software. I like your idea of using functional Persona, as it then should be easier to validate against real people. My argument before that Persona is not a valid method as there is no way to validate if a persona reflects a real person applies to design-project-wide personas, and may not apply to Functional Level Personas. This is because the scenarios can be tested if they are real or not, even if the Personas can't. It would be useful if you could share some of your scenarios and Personas so we can try testing the design of them theoretically, and see if they overcome the challenges with project-wide personas, which I think by your brief description of them they do. James 2008/12/28 Jared Spool <jsp...@uie.com> > > On Dec 27, 2008, at 11:47 PM, Angel Marquez wrote: > > I was thinking you would do your research, create personas based on your >> findings, find their real life equivalents, and use something similar to >> the >> character sheets to track their behaviors during usability testing with >> prototypes etc.. >> THEN >> >> Use those stats to fine tune the design while collecting the character >> types >> and offering them to the cyber community. >> >> It was a fleeting morning coffee thought though... >> > > It's an interesting notion. > > I like the idea of tying together with some uniform structure all phases of > the deliverables, from early design through refinement and launch. At an > abstract level, I think that's what you're describing. > > I'm a big fan of functional-level personas: personas that are created and > curated with specific functionality in mind. Using this approach, when > you're designing the print functionality of your product, you'd create and > use different personas than if you're creating a data-merge capability. This > way the personas and scenarios are tightly tied to the functionality you're > focusing on. > > I like functional-level personas better than design-project-wide personas > because it's easier to have them inform the specific design requirements. No > doubt, they take more time and effort (at least to get started -- over time > the team creates a substantial library of personas which can be rejuvenated > for new functionality). I think the initial cost is worth it, but I know a > lot of folks disagree. > > I think in my approach of these lower-level personas, sharing them with the > cyber community is less valuable, since it's unlikely that they are > expressed in any applicable form for people not working on the localized > project. > > However, there's a lot to be said for some relative of the DnD character > sheets to help with the curation of the ever growing library of user > research data, personas, and their match with the library of patterns and > components. > > Don't give up on this idea. I think there's something to it. > > :) > > Jared > > Jared M. Spool > User Interface Engineering > 510 Turnpike St., Suite 102, North Andover, MA 01845 > e: jsp...@uie.com p: +1 978 327 5561 > http://uie.com Blog: http://uie.com/brainsparks Twitter: jmspool > > > ________________________________________________________________ > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! > To post to this list ....... disc...@ixda.org > 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 ....... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
