Re: [IxDA Discuss] Online newspaper software?
Thanks to everyone who gave me leads for online newspaper software. Your tips and ideas have been really helpful. I am always grateful to have access to such a generous community of people. Joseph Selbie Founder, CEO Tristream Web Application Design http://www.tristream.com *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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
[IxDA Discuss] Online newspaper software?
Does anyone know of a well designed, highly usable, open source, online newspaper software? I need the usual ability to post, edit, archive and delete articles, and I need a "community" events calendar and classified ads. If no open source software covers all of these, perhaps some of you could recommend individual solutions for the events calendar and for classified ads. Any help is greatly appreciated. I have a no budget pro bono client :). Joseph Selbie Founder, CEO Tristream Web Application Design http://www.tristream.com *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] "home" links
Micah, Your sort of answered the question yourself. Your answer should be derived from your users. If "Aunt Tilly" is a significant user type, or actual persona, then by all means include home in the main navigation. In a general, unless there is a space issue, brand issue, or some other compelling factor, I would include home in the main nav, even if most people understand to click on the logo -- simply because it is more likely to satisfy more users. Joseph Selbie Founder, CEO Tristream Web Application Design http://www.tristream.com *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Myers Briggs, DISC, Personality of UX Folk
Years ago I asked all my employees if they would (voluntarily) take an online survey/evaluation from a company called Performance Learning Systems. Their survey/evaluation included Myers Briggs, from which I did not gain much perspective, but it also included an approach usually called GASC. GASC evaluates one's perceptual and organizational styles. GASC is an acronym for Global, Abstract, Sequential and Concrete. An individual's evaluation results are expressed as pairs of styles -- concrete sequential, abstract sequential, abstract random/global, and concrete random/global. Unlike Myer's Briggs, the four basic types (from all my companies employees -- about 40 at the time) matched up really well with the kinds of positions they held. The correlation that most caught my attention was that all of my interaction designers came out of the evaluation as concrete random/global. Other people on my staff matched up well with their evaluation, but none of the other correlations was a striking as that of my interaction designers. I don't administer a formal evaluation to prospective interaction designers, but I have learned to ask questions that reveal their perceptual and organization styles that allows me to make a rough assessment. Joseph Selbie Founder, CEO Tristream Web Application Design http://www.tristream.com *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Defining UCD (and other things)
I think we should "own" the design of interfaces. In making this statement, is your intent to exclude all the other things we do? Not at all. I believe the interactive design process is, and should be, a rich and varied process which includes a wide variety of approaches, practices, skill sets, etc. Similarly, the architectural design process has many approaches (from the user-centered such as Christopher Alexanders Pattern Language, to the Frank Lloyd Wright design-from-inspiration approach), many practices (skyscrapers, landscape, public spaces, residential, commercial) and skill sets (draftsmen, designers, researchers etc. the usual span of skills required for a team process). But there is no question in the average persons mind that all the approaches, practices and skill sets involved dovetail for the purpose of designing buildings. If one takes a giant step back from our profession, one can see that all design processes, ours included, that require a team (architecture, industrial design, advertising, mechanical design, all come to mind), tend to develop specialties. And the specialties tend to follow the same pattern: the design team needs to know who the design is for and what it needs to accomplish, what are the budgets and materials (whether steel or code) that the team has to work with, and to have an iterative design process that methodically integrates input and critique. We would be naïve to think that interaction design/usability/experience design is solving completely new problems. Rather, I would say, interaction design/usability/experience design is solving the same problems as architecture and industrial design has to solve, but we are solving the problems within the medium of digital interfaces. Again, if we take a giant step back from our profession and compare it to other team design processes you will see many similarities across the methodologies employed but the one thing that stands out as the difference between our profession and architecture is the medium we apply our design process to interfaces. So, I advocate that we embrace that defining difference the medium in order to differentiate ourselves from other design disciplines. The other path is to define interactive design as an approach (with specific practices) that can be applied to the design of nearly everything. I understand and appreciate that this is a valid way to view and promote interaction design. My concern about that direction is that interaction design could simply become a trend that passes, and is passed up and made irrelevant by a newer more trendy approach. Approaches come and go but the medium is here to stay. Architecture constantly evolves (new practices, new approaches, new materials, new challenges) but the medium buildings remains the central purpose of the profession. I am advocating that we move forward with the aim to establish in the average persons mind that all the approaches, practices and skill sets involved in interactive design dovetail for the purpose of designing interfaces that facilitate rich interaction. Those interfaces can reside on the dash board of a car, the handle bar of a really cool lawn mower, a mobile device, a refrigerator door, or a computer but the commonality is that they all have interfaces that allow rich interaction. Joseph Selbie Founder, CEO Tristream Web Application Design http://www.tristream.com *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Defining UCD (and other things)
Dave, If I am understanding you correctly, you are saying that you prefer to be in a particular position or phase of the process -- but doesn't the process, looked at as a whole, still end up in an interface? If this is the case, then I would say that there is already plenty of room within the discipline of interaction design for specialists, principles, generalists, etc. There are many architects who have a role analogous to the one you describe, but they are still very much architects, because they need to understand the whole in order to do their part of it -- and the ultimate purpose of the process is still designing a building. Joseph Selbie Founder, CEO Tristream Web Application Design http://www.tristream.com -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of dave malouf Sent: Saturday, January 19, 2008 2:22 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] Defining UCD (and other things) I think in the end I'm very happy NOT designing things, but rather I'd be the more influential person designing the ideas and telling the person who design things what I want them to do and if they don't get it right, tell them to do it again. Or ... Collaborate with experts in form making w/ my expertise in dialog creation. This is what I do now, and I have to say this sort of co-designing to me is the model that I would like to see pushed forward. Being charge of interaction and form is nice but some subjects are just more complex and when you are working at that level of complexity (digital/analog eco-systems and services) its great to apply design theory and practice in this way. things are commodities. ideas generate true value. -- dave . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=24685 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Defining UCD (and other things)
The answer to the question of how we should define interaction design, from my point of view, is not so much a matter of what it *could* be, as it is a matter of what we *want* it to be. I think we have a big opportunity to clearly and pragmatically establish interaction design as a major discipline. Architects "own" the design of buildings. Industrial designers "own" the design of objects. I think we should "own" the design of interfaces. Architects are defined by their medium. Industrial designers are defined by their medium. And it works well. Sure there are blurry edges, architects design public spaces, gardens, etc., but still the obvious heart of what they do is to design buildings. Also, I'm afraid that our reach will exceed our grasp if we define ourselves as applicable to all mediums. If we include the interactions that people have in a retail environment as part of interaction design, then not only do we stray from the core medium of interfaces, but we also exceed our grasp -- because there is already a strong design specialty that focuses on retail spaces. Sure there is some risk in defining ourselves too tightly, so I would advocate a definition of interface that can evolve forward in time -- but I also think it needs to be obvious enough that laymen understand it. From my point of view, that rules out anything that isn't tangible. It must be touchable, hearable, viewable, etc., and be "something" through which a single person interacts. Right now, 99% of the things being made that fall under those criteria are visual, touchable, digital interfaces. So let's embrace it. Let's own the design of interfaces. I don't think this implies that interaction is the wrong name for us, and that we should be called interface designers. After all, architects are not called buildatechs, nor are industrial designers called object designers. Architect and industrial designer are simply the names that "stuck" over time, and which are now commonly accepted to mean what they mean. We can do the same for interaction design but only -- in my opinion -- if we associate it clearly with an easily understood medium -- interfaces. I think we would be missing a big opportunity if our definition becomes too academic and broad. Like "human factors" or "experience design", interaction design could become only a conceptual framework that is applicable to almost anything. I am advocating a pragmatic, career oriented, business oriented approach and purpose to IXDA -- which may not be congruent with the overall view -- but I think may resonate with many people on this list. I would hope this becomes an important discussion for the board to facilitate. I envision that a more focused and pragmatic approach (aligning ourselves to a particular medium) would more easily lead to training, certification, degrees, etc. just as architecture and industrial design have done. One needs a rich understanding of one's medium to design to it. Much of the training to be an architect is about understanding the medium as well as the process of design. I think interaction design is at a cross-roads. Does it become an adjunct discipline that is applicable to many different design processes across many different media, or does it become focused on one medium and thereby become a big "D" design discipline. My $.02 -- or maybe $.04. Joseph Selbie Founder, CEO Tristream Web Application Design *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Defining UCD (and other things)
"Now, volunteers to play "moderator/author"? Who's in?" Consider me volunteered! Joseph Selbie Founder and CEO, Tristream Web Application Design http://www.tristream.com *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Defining UCD (and other things)
I just wanted add my plea to the board to get behind this in some way. I would be more than happy to help out if my help were needed or wanted. But mostly I would love to see this done. Not only might we be able to come up with agreed upon frameworks/hierarchies/definitions, but we might also be able to correlate titles to practices. I agree with Robert that this could "...help IxDA gain more widespread respect from the larger community." Joseph Selbie Founder, CEO Tristream Web Application Design http://www.tristream.com -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Robert Hoekman, Jr. Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2008 8:38 AM To: IxDA Subject: [IxDA Discuss] Defining UCD (and other things) Charlie said: "Well, if people are interested in collaborating on some of these definitions, I would be happy to try and coordinate." He also suggested a wiki as the tool of choice, which is a good idea. If IxDA has a Basecamp account, though, it might be prudent to compile a short list of people to include in a BC project, who can use a Writeboard to create these definitions and then toss them out to the list for feedback. Our definitions should go beyond UCD. Should also include ACD, genius design (likely a recap of Saffer's original definition, which is often misinterpreted or otherwise abused), and other processes/approaches. Perhaps the very act of defining these terms will help IxDA gain more widespread respect from the larger community. Can the IxDA board please speak up? How might we go about doing this? -- -Robert Hoekman, Jr.- CEO / Principal Experience Designer Miskeeto, LLC - www.miskeeto.com *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Is user research a band-aid for "the listening deficit"?
Jared wrote: "In our research, a lot of it plays into the organizational structure." "If you want to fix the problem, follow the money." I couldn't agree more. Most of the companies my company has worked for have a built in conflict between the engineers/developers and the designers and business leads. Typically the business leads are insisting on bringing us in to do a thorough user centered design -- but the budget for the development of the application comes out of IT. Plus the IT group is rewarded for speed and economical reuse of code -- both of which tend to fight against new design. Joseph Selbie Founder, CEO Tristream Web Application Design http://www.tristream.com *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] The mighty UX guru has spoken - Discuss!!
[I sent this earlier today and apparently left off the ixda list as a cc. Jared, perhaps you haven't seen it either.] Jared, Allow me to apologize. My tone has been confrontational rather than seeking to find common ground. But you got my hackles up when you, not once, but twice in the same posting, referred to my opinions as "a load of crap". I regret tossing the same phrase back at you with a little added sarcasm -- tit for tat rarely gets us anywhere. I also regret that my comments were construed as an attack on, or lack of appreciation for, usability, its practices or practitioners. What I was trying to do, admittedly with more heat than was helpful, was champion the role of the designer, which I think is tending to be diminished by the current ascension of usability. I don't however, see it as a zero sum game. To champion the role of the designer does not imply criticism of the role of usability or usability practitioners. Both are necessary -- and the better they both are, the better the outcome. In my humble opinion however, the people who are really good at one, are rarely really good at the other (design and usability). The more of a mix of skills and talents in these domains that someone brings to the process, the better it is for the whole. But I've yet to meet someone who really excels at both. Perhaps it is only because I pushed you too hard, but I came away with the impression that you don't feel there is that much difference between the two roles, really. It sounded as if you thought it was more a matter of the skills and training in one's toolkit -- and not, as I believe, the result of significant differences in temperament. You might be interested in a learning styles survey I conducted at Tristream years ago. A major component of the survey was to discover how people tended to organize information and was based on a system usually referred to as GASC -- short for Global, Abstract, Sequential, Concrete. What I found was remarkably consistent. The people who were the best interaction designers were consistently Global/Concrete in their approach to organizing information. They needed to start with a global perspective and then they could take it down to concrete form. The people who were the best at analysis and critique were Concrete/Sequential, they needed to start with a concrete perspective and then apply sequential processes to analyze it. One of the results of this survey was that we became more conscious of making sure any teams assigned to projects had a good mix of both -- but it was always the Global/Concrete person that took the lead in designing solutions. It was also always the Global/Concrete person who became frustrated most easily with process, process, process, and they often needed to come in early, or work at home, so that they had the space to be creative. The Global/Concrete interaction designer was also easily frustrated by "specific" design solutions suggested in response to iterative reviews or user testing. They would rather hear what the nature of the problem was and then go and design a solution -- because the specific solutions presented rarely meshed well with the overall, global design. I hope that helps clarify my point of view. If not, let us, as you already suggested, agree to disagree. I for one have to get back to work :). I hope you get a nice break for the holidays. Respectfully, Joseph Selbie Founder, CEO Tristream Web Application Design http://www.tristream.com *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] The mighty UX guru has spoken - Discuss!!
Robert, I was only trying to convey the notion that designing is the rarer talent, because it is an amazing synthesis of both left brain and right brain processes. I personally don't find it hard. I would find evaluation hard because I'm not tempera mentally suited to it. But "hard" has become a distraction in this thread I wish I hadn't used it seven postings ago J. Ø I understand. But this doesn't really explain your analogy that a Usability professional is like a movie critic, so I'm standing by my statement. I wasnt trying to say that being a usability professional is like being a movie critic in terms of *specific* methods. I was using the movie critic as one example of the age old debate as to whether being able to critique, evaluate, measure, analyze a domain, bestows on one the ability to design or create at an equally high level in that domain. My answer is no. I think there are people (but very few) who are good at evaluation and analysis who can also do good design but imho, they can design because they posses that talent, *as well as* the talent to evaluate and analyze not as a *result* of the talent to evaluate and analyze. Apparently, based on other posts in other threads, this comes across as annoyingly elitist. Im sorry if it does, but it just seems plain as a pikestaff to me. I have the good fortune to work with a great visual designer. I often need to critique his design. I try very hard not to make specific design suggestions. Rather I tell him what isnt working for me in the language of what my reactions to his design are. It is obvious to me that he possesses a magic that I simply do not have why get in the way of it? I dont think him elitist because he can do something I cant nor do I think him elitist because he cant explain to me what he is doing he just does it way better than I can. Why does superior talent have to be explicable to everyone in order to be acceptable. Is it political correctness? Some people are just better at some things than others. Joseph Selbie Founder, CEO Tristream Web Application Design http://www.tristream.com *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] The mighty UX guru has spoken - Discuss!!
Robert, The word "harder" has become an issue here that I really never intended. I was only trying to convey the notion that designing is the rarer talent, because it is an amazing synthesis of both left brain and right brain processes. I personally don't find it hard. I would find evaluation hard because I'm not tempera mentally suited to it. But "hard" has become a distraction in this thread - I wish I hadn't used it seven postings ago J. As to the age old debate, you took "the letter not the spirit" of my comments. I think the ability to critique things well, whether as a simple review or an exhaustive, complex, challenging process - does not make one equally good at designing or suggesting design solutions. That's all. It's not a complex point. Joseph Selbie Founder, CEO Tristream Web Application Design http://www.tristream.com *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] The mighty UX guru has spoken - Discuss!!
gree. This is an age old debate. But there is no question in my mind that it is harder to write a book than to write a book review. It is harder to make a movie than to write a movie review. It is harder to pull together all the myriad inputs for web ware and software (usability inputs among them) and design an elegant, user-friendly, simple solution that satisfies all inputs, than it is to measure and critique the proposed solution. The people who can design well rise to the top in any design organization, precisely because they *are* more enlightened about designing than other members of the team. "I think your implication that usability practice is about "evaluating and incrementally improving something already established" shows misses what good usability practice bring to the design process. Good usability practice informs the team by providing insights into the team's decision making process, thereby enhancing the quality of the resulting design." I never said that a good usability practice was not extremely helpful. I just said design was harder because it has to include the awareness of usability along with creativity. "Your definition of talent is also incorrect. Talent, by most behavioral definitions, is not the sum of all skills and experiences, which are separate from talent. Talent is an innate capability. You can have two people with the exact same skills (which are learned) and experiences, yet if one is more talented, you'll see results. That's why David Ortiz plays baseball very differently than Alex Rodriguez. Both have almost equivalent skills (as does every major league player) and very similar experiences, but very different talents." I'm not sure what you are trying to say here. It seems to me that you are making my point that design talent crosses over into the indefinable difference between science and art. I never said that talent is the sum total of one's skills and experience - just the opposite. "Designing is not any more an artistic endeavor than usability practice. And good design employs as much "science" as good evaluation does." Here is where I think we diverge the most. I am compelled to offer back to you your elegant phrase, "This is just a load of crap". As far as I can tell, you tend to think there is a design *process* that results in good design. Get the right inputs into the process and out comes a good design. In my experience, a good design process merely enables talented individuals to design well. A good process insures that the designer(s) are not unaware of key criteria for the design. A good design process iterates without losing the magic of the core design. But the outcome of the process still relies centrally on the talents of the designer(s). As I said earlier, if the designer isn't very talented, a good design team may insure that the horse that started with only two legs ends up with four. But if you don't have a talented designer you'll never end up with a racehorse. Of course, these are just my opinions and based purely on my experience doing research and evaluation the field of design for almost 30 years. It's likely I'm not enlightened enough to understand how it's really done, so please assess the validity of my comments accordingly. These are of course my opinions also, based on 15 years critiquing design, managing design, and designing. Respectfully yours, Joseph Selbie Founder, CEO Tristream Web Application Design http://www.tristream.com *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] The mighty UX guru has spoken - Discuss!!
Eva, "This might just be an argument in semantics, but I do think that your view of usability is a reductionist one. If a usability test does not test a user's ability to accomplish a goal using the system under question, what does it test? If a usability test exposes that users hate the system (or love the system) for whatever reason, does that not contribute to that system's usability?" I think you are right that some of this discussion is semantic. If usability becomes a more generic term and becomes synonymous with "quality" then so be it. I won't like it :), but better that than no evaluation of other aspects of the design at all. And I agree that if usability testing reveals other flaws in the design that are not specifically issues of whether a feature is usable or not, that is a bonus. But, if a design team is relying on "usability testing" to reveal *all* flaws in design, that begs the question of whether common usability methods for evaluation are really up to *intentionally* finding all flaws. For example, in my primary work as a web application designer, mapping screen flow to work flow is one of the most important "critical to quality" elements in design. Usability evaluation may reveal whether a person likes or dislikes the screen flow, but it doesn't measure the *effectiveness* of the screen flow. For that you need the classic time and motion stop watch approach. So if usability is going to expand to include all critical to quality measurement, then it will have to expand its tool set and methods as well. Joseph Selbie Founder, CEO Tristream Web Application Design http://www.tristream.com *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] The mighty UX guru has spoken - Discuss!!
Navin, You say: "it is rather strange that evaluation and analytical tools tend to start playing the role of a design tool. even in process design i see more and more people resorting to simulation and evaluation tools for the purpose of design itself. no wonder good processes don't get made that easily." I agree whole-heartedly. I talk with lots of people (as a consultant being inside many different firms, and as a presenter at conferences where I field questions) who seem to feel that if they collect enough techniques, enough tools, enough process, that their project will somehow all come together as a whole. Their conception of the design process is too mechanical. Good design is holistic. A good designer synthesizes the information available yet adds cohesion, magic, wow, clarity, simplicity to the project in a way that no amount of tools or process can duplicate. Joseph Selbie Founder, CEO Tristream Web Application Design http://www.tristream.com *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] The mighty UX guru has spoken - Discuss!!
Jeff, This was in my original post: "Clearly, both designers and usability practitioners have to understand the principles of what makes a site, or software or product usable, but this doesn't mean that the person who is the usability specialist would be an equally good designer." When a good designer is working, he or she is combining their knowledge of what makes things usable, with a number of other considerations -- user research, business goals, user types/personas, browser or OS limitations, back end limitations and more -- which all come together in a creative flow. The results of the creative flow, if the designer is a good one, will indeed be highly usable. It may combine many elements that have already been used in other software and web sites, web apps, etc., but the design will none-the-less feel unique - greater than the sum of its parts so to speak. That is what I mean by the intangible difference between art and science. It is artistry, talent, something more than just the synthesis of information, though it includes the synthesis of information. In my experience, the people who are very good at usability, as a science of measuring and analyzing, are most often not equally good at design. I dare say the reverse is also true. The meticulous, concrete, analytical temperament that are the hallmarks of a good analyst are rarely found at a high level in a good designer. If I could ask your indulgence with a rather elaborate metaphor, I would say that excellent usability practitioners are highly skilled at breaking down the whole into myriad parts and measuring them all separately. The excellent designer, on the other hand, is highly skilled at taking myriad inputs and creating a whole. The former strikes me as more inherently rational and science-like, while the latter strikes me as requiring more art. I agree with you that both disciplines are necessary. Without the science of usability, we would have a lot of bad software and webware. But without the art of design we would have no excellent software or webware. There may be people who combine these two temperaments - but frankly I've yet to meet them. Usually everyone is a mix of both but with greater excellence in one direction or the other. Joseph Selbie Founder, CEO Tristream Web Application Design http://www.tristream.com *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] The mighty UX guru has spoken - Discuss!!
"What it sounds like you're trying to say is that somehow designers are more enlightened about good design than usability practitioners. I think this is a fallacious argument (and, to some, probably insulting)." Jared, If a designer isn't more enlightened about good design than a usability practitioner, than I would have to say they probably shouldn't be designers. I'm not sure why this has to sound like it would be insulting to usability practitioners. Designing is a different process than evaluation. Clearly, both designers and usability practitioners have to understand the principles of what makes a site, or software or product usable, but this doesn't mean that the person who is the usability specialist would be an equally good designer. I will also say (clearly opening myself to heated disagreement) that designing something is much more difficult than evaluating and incrementally improving something already established. It requires a holistic appreciation of many factors. And it takes talent -- which is not simply the sum of all the skills and experiences the designer has picked up over the years -- it is more than that. *Good* designers are, in fact, more enlightened about good design than *good* usability practitioners and it is that indefinable something that separates art from science that makes it so. Joseph Selbie Founder, CEO Tristream Web Application Design http://www.tristream.com *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] The mighty UX guru has spoken - Discuss!!
"I don't agree with the conclusion that usability is always about 'staying out of the way' or making the interface 'not bad'. I think it's about ensuring that the design and features are helping the users (and the business) move toward their goals, rather than hindering them. This is as likely to mean adding functionality or visual elements as removing them, and boils down to placing the _proper_ emphasis on elements within the interface. A lot of usability work by necessity focuses on the 'taking away' end of the continuum because most interfaces suffer from feature and information overload rather than the opposite, but that's just the reality we live in. I would suggest that what makes an interface great is not the wow factor of novelty or aesthetic appeal, but true responsiveness to the user's needs, regardless of whether this means an understated design that lets them focus on a business goal or a delightfully fun game that wows them with visuals and helps them forget they're at work." Eva, It seems to me that you are expanding the meaning of usability to include anything good. It becomes fun-ability, can-accomplish-goals-ability, maps-to-workflow-ability, responsiveness-to-users-needs-ability and so on. I prefer to think these are all elements of good design but are not subsets of usability. A website can pass usability tests with flying colors but not include these other qualities. Joseph Selbie Founder, CEO Tristream Web Application Design http://www.tristream.com *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] The mighty UX guru has spoken - Discuss!!
"Correct me if I am wrong here, Joseph, but from your perspective the term Usability should be used only with regard to Testing and Evaluation. Am I right? (I'm not challenging your perspective, only trying to determine if there is a consensual or at least majority view here.) " That is a good question. My take is that usability as a *process* is measurement (testing and evaluation). Usability as a *concept* refers to qualities of the design. So you could make the statement that good design is highly usable - which mixes the two ideas - but, in my view point, it doesn't mix the two processes. Joseph Selbie Founder, CEO Tristream Web Application Design http://www.tristream.com *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] The mighty UX guru has spoken - Discuss!!
"Jared, I realized after I hit 'Send' that I was danger of implying that 'design = making things pretty' or something similar, but the deed was done. Design and Usability can be treated as: 1. Two ends of a continuum/spectrum 2. Two sides a coin 3. Two intersecting circles in a Venn diagram 4. " I have always thought this was the wrong way to view the difference between usability and design. It makes it seem as if they are part of the same process. My way of thinking about them -- which at least makes it clear for me -- is that usability testing *measures* the success of design. Once you get your measurement of success or failure, then you *design* a new solution -- two different processes. Joseph Selbie Founder, CEO Tristream Web Application Design http://www.tristream.com *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] 'Select Country' dropdown
Billy, Your users should determine that for you. If you have a clear majority, or very high percentage of users, from one country, such as the US, then I think it would be very user centered to put their country at the top of the list. If you have no dominant country(s) then go alpha. Joseph Selbie Founder, CEO Tristream Web Application Design http://www.tristream.com -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Billy Cox Sent: Monday, December 17, 2007 6:47 AM To: IxDA list Subject: [IxDA Discuss] 'Select Country' dropdown In filling out various web forms, I have noticed two interaction standards specifically related to dropdowns in which the user selects their country of residence. 1 -- List is alphabetical (placing United States near the end of the list) 2 -- Most likely selection(s) at the top of the list, with remainder of list alphabetical. Which one would you use and what would influence your decision? Billy Cox Old World Spices [EMAIL PROTECTED] *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] AJAX and Accessibility Question
"I have a question and would love to get everyone¹s take on it. Does the use of AJAX make a site more or less accessible in terms of users with disabilities?" In and of itself AJAX doesn't make your site more or less accessible, as with most things, it depends on how you use it. So you can't make a blanket statement that AJAX isn't as accessible as other approaches. However, having said that, chances are that what you will want to do with AJAX will end up making it harder for a person using a "reader" (such as JAWS) to navigate through your site -- and probably impossible. The key is how much javascript you use and how you use it. JAWS does read some javascript -- and interprets what it means to the user verbally so they can make a decision what to do to find things in your site. But JAWS is not able to successfully interpret all javascript. Drag and drop for example is beyond JAWS, as are other complex interactions. For example, where javascript is used to call up more data (such as in an i-frame) JAWS simply may not be able to tell the user how to access the information. I recommend, if you or your clients are needing to become more compliant with accessibility requirements, that you acquaint yourselves with JAWS and other readers for the visually impaired. It is similar to learning the limitation of a browser. There are simply things you cannot do if your users were going to have to view your site through IE 4. The same holds true for the readers. You have to get to know them and work creatively within their capabilities. Joseph Selbie Founder, CEO Tristream Web Application Design http://www.tristream.com *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] The Millenials are coming
Robert wrote: Design managers beware. :) http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/11/08/60minutes/main3475200. >From the article: "Some of them are the greatest generation. They're more hardworking. They have these tools to get things done," she explains. "They are enormously clever and resourceful. Some of the others are absolutely incorrigible. It's their way or the highway. The rest of us are old, redundant, should be retired. How dare we come in, anyone over 30. Not only can't be trusted, can't be counted upon to be, sort of, coherent." Does anyone have first hand experience of this? Or is this an exaggeration for the sake of getting attention. I have had the positive experience mentioned in the article but I've not had the negative kind of experience mentioned above, but my experience is limited. I curious what others have experienced. Joseph Selbie Founder, CEO Tristream Web Application Design http://www.tristream.com *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Do Engineers Understand UX documents?
Christopher, In a subsequent post to this thread I wrote this regarding documentation standards: "I just don't think it is simply a matter of agreeing on *existing* standards. What we are designing is rapidly evolving, which is requiring an equally rapid evolution of the tools we use to design. I can imagine a day in the not too distant future where we have one type of design tool that outputs any kind of documentation -- one to many, not many to one. If you want to see the design as a working prototype it could give it to you -- in any of a variety of standards. If you want to see the design as a series of schematic drawings it could give it to you -- in any of a variety of standards. We see glimpses of this kind of tool in some of the interoperations between programs such as Photoshop and Dreamweaver or Fireworks and Flash -- but these are just the beginning. Someday we'll have our version of AutoCAD Inventor." I completely agree with you that were we to freeze standards today that they would be obsolete tomorrow! However, I'm not sure that I agree that standardization would inherently be a bad thing and cause stagnation. But, like most things in and around business, it will work itself out in the market place. Useful standards will evolve and be used because they are helpful to the process of making money. Temporarily helpful documentation ideas will drop away to be replaced by new ones. I don't imagine that standards would ever completely finish evolving either. I would guess (not being an architect) that in architectural documentation new ways to document new building materials and new building techniques are constantly being added -- but the framework within which they are added is pretty stable. As I say, I don't expect to see much standardization in IX design documentation anytime soon, and I rather like the pace of rapid evolution that is taking place on all fronts -- it's part of why I like this profession. So when (and if) it does standardize, I'd probably lose interest anyway! Joseph Selbie Founder, CEO Tristream Web Application Design http://www.tristream.com -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Christopher Fahey Sent: Saturday, November 03, 2007 9:58 AM To: IxDA Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] Do Engineers Understand UX documents? On Nov 2, 2007, at 10:41 AM, Joseph Selbie wrote: > > I would love to see standardization also, but I don't expect it soon. > Architecture has had 5 millennia to evolve some standards, software > has had > 5 decades :). Agreed that we won't see it soon, but I don't agree that I would ever love to see it. As I've argued many times before (http://tinyurl.com/35gqm8), standardization of design documentation in our business is in many ways a sure-fire recipe for stagnation, especially if the products or sites you are designing are intended to do wholly new things, or if you intend to build a UI convention that improves on the product or the industry's status quo. Sure, standardization is good for "we don't need to re-invent the wheel" products. But do such products really exist? How many products do you work on where there is no new UI thinking required? If your design challenge requires any innovation at all -- and in our industry a great many design challenges do -- then we must constantly innovate our design documentation, too. (As an aside: The field of architecture isn't as wholly standardized as we might think. Architects often devise new ways of showing and explaining their ideas. From collage to painting and drawing, 3D rendering software and animated flythroughs, physical models, conceptual sculptures, full-scale room mock-ups, films and audio renderings of the experience, and much more. The concept work and schematic drawings by great architects are often prized as works of art because they show new ways of perceiving structure and experience.) If we in the UXD field had, say, strictly standardized our wireframing process in 2000, we'd never have page-less Ajax interfaces today. I even suspect that many sites that can and should be using Ajax today still can't manage to upgrade their UI simply because the information architects working on the site are hampered by their primitive -- but standardized! -- IA toolsets. They cannot, for example, document a registration form that displays the validity of your new username as you type because the standardized wireframe template requires all server interactions to be documented as a new page/view -- their wireframe templates are page-based, so as a result their sites are, too. When I hear someone ask "how do I document an Ajax interaction", my answer is "just make it up". What's more, I do not agree with the idea (posited by some here) that engine
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Do Engineers Understand UX documents? (was "Alan Cooper on Software...")
Bruno, I too am hopeful that it won't take 5000 years to develop standards for IX design :). I just don't think it is simply a matter of agreeing on *existing* standards. What we are designing is rapidly evolving, which is requiring an equally rapid evolution of the tools we use to design. I can imagine a day in the not too distant future where we have one type of design tool that outputs any kind of documentation -- one to many, not many to one. If you want to see the design as a working prototype it could give it to you -- in any of a variety of standards. If you want to see the design as a series of schematic drawings it could give it to you -- in any of a variety of standards. We see glimpses of this kind of tool in some of the interoperations between programs such as Photoshop and Dreamweaver or Fireworks and Flash -- but these are just the beginning. Someday we'll have our version of AutoCAD Inventor. As to architecture being 4D, I think this is a bit disingenuous. Everything is in fact 4D. The universe we inhabit is 4D. And of course any design process, architecture or any other, necessarily requires an awareness of this reality. But an architect only needs to take into account the *fact* that people will interact with the building. With IXD it is necessary to *design* the way people can interact with an application, or website, or OS with a moment by moment, click by click level of detail and accuracy. I'm sure one can make a case that people interact with buildings. But I think it is also fair to say that nearly all of those interactions are commonly understood and accepted. The interactions that we in our profession are designing are often completely new, and cannot rely on accepted understanding to be communicated -- thus the need for the current complexity of design documentation. Joseph Selbie Founder, CEO Tristream Web Application Design http://www.tristream.com -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Bruno Figueiredo Sent: Friday, November 02, 2007 8:08 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] Do Engineers Understand UX documents? (was "Alan Cooper on Software...") As Bruno Zevi once wrote, Architecture is indeed 4D. You can't develop your perception of a building without walking through it. That's the 4th dimension and why 3D walkthroughs are so popular. Yes, architecture had a lot of time to develop standards, but mankind as produced more information on the last decade than all of the previous centuries combined. To achieve standardization we have to communicate, and communication is as easy as ever. What we have to do is to take clues from existing 4D representations. And build upon what each one of us had to develop for our own projects. If we managed to come up with solutions for our problems by ourselves, just imagine what we could do together. Jesse James Garret already started this whit a basic set of visual representations. We just have to improve upon it. *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://gamma.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://gamma.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://gamma.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Do Engineers Understand UX documents? (was "Alan Cooper on Software...")
I love analogies between architecture and IX. I think there are many similarities, but there are some significant differences that tend to work against your point: 3) We need a clear set of standardized and simple deliverables. A blueprint has most of what anyone needs to know about a particular floor in a building. It has links to other drawings as well. But everything lies mostly on one page. Sometimes UX documentation is just too scattered (interaction guidelines, wireframes, detailed object interactions). Put yourself on an engineers shoes. Would you bother going through a pile of documents just to build the simplest of things? That's why most of what engineers build upon what we deliver them is so off on the first iteration. Architecture is 3D and lends itself to diagrammatic representation. IX design, in my opinion is 4D. The fourth dimension is time. Interactions are by their very nature a series of events that take place on the time axis. Representing the interactions that take place in time in a primary document has always been a challenge -- thus story boards, annotations, prototypes, etc. are necessary to communicate (at times poorly) the dynamic elements of the project. I would love to see standardization also, but I don't expect it soon. Architecture has had 5 millennia to evolve some standards, software has had 5 decades :). Joseph Selbie Founder, CEO Tristream Web Application Design http://www.tristream.com *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://gamma.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://gamma.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://gamma.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Do Engineers Understand UX documents? (was "Alan Cooper on Software...")
Christopher, My previous answer to your question was that getting the engineers to participate in the design process was essential to them "getting" the essence of the project -- a holistic understanding without which they may easily stray during the development phase. To answer your question more pointedly, I'd say that engineers will "get" many types of documentation (perhaps all types) as long as they have participated in the process that led to the documentation. But if they don't participate, no particular documentation type will insure that they "get" it. Joseph Selbie Founder, CEO Tristream Web Application Design http://www.tristream.com Lots of good answers here... but so far not one person has said that, in their experience, engineers don't understand UXD documentation. David's distinction between "value" and "understand" is good: do engineers understand our documents but still dislike them? This is what I really wanted to know, because, again, in my experience the opposite -- that they totally "get" and greatly appreciate our documentation -- is decidedly true. -Cf Christopher Fahey *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://gamma.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://gamma.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://gamma.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Do Engineers Understand UX documents? (was "Alan Cooper on Software...")
"Another thing I'd add is that while we may be the owners of our documents, I feel we should be consulting with engineers, design, product, business, etc., during document creation as much as possible. Let expertise reign where appropriate." Janna, I couldn't agree more. If the programmers can't understand our final deliverables I feel that our process has failed. I am happy to say that we almost never have significant problems in this regard. Our success comes from insisting that the programmers who will be responsible for building the application we design are represented in the design process from the beginning. We insist on participation in workshops, iterative approval processes and rough prototypes. By the time we finish our process the programming team usually knows and understands the design as fully as we do (maybe not quite as fully but close). Designing software apart from programmer input and participation is, in my experience, asking for trouble. 1.) What you design may not be able to be built -- period. 2.) Programmers may have tremendous resistance to the design (which could have been overcome if they were included in the design process). 3.) The design is accepted but suffers the death of a thousand cuts as many "little" changes are deemed necessary during the build process. In my experience, methodical collaboration with the right mix of roles creates a shared, holistic understanding of the project that no amount of exactitude in design deliverables can ever achieve on its own. Joseph Selbie Founder, CEO Tristream Web Application Design http://www.tristream.com *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://gamma.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://gamma.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://gamma.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] how and when to estimate time and price for a Goal-Directed project
Rafa, Welcome to one of the most challenging aspects of being a freelancer, contractor or independent agency. "For all of you freelancers and employees at companies, at what point do you tell a potential customer how long/much will a project cost? and, how can you tell before doing the research? (which won't happen until they have agreed to work with you)." Unless your client is open to an estimate (as opposed to a fixed bid price --and few clients are) you need to give them a cost so they can decide whether to go ahead with their project, or compare your cost to other bidders. Sometimes you can phase the project so that Phase 1 has a price but phase 2 is to be determined, but most clients can't work that way. They need to know all costs before they can green light the project. There are two factors that influence what your bid should be: 1.) how much time you will spend and 2.) how much money the client will spend. These are at times frustratingly different realities. Whenever possible, I try to get some ball park figure from a potential client. Most clients do not want to tell you what their budget is -- I think this is a mistake on their part but that is another subject -- but some will simply tell you. For the others I will often throw out figures to gauge a reaction, e.g. "Do you want us to do extensive user research? That could add (fill in your blank) dollars to the project." Their reaction, if they react, to the question gives me a clue to what kind of budget they have. Sometimes I will say, "This project could be as high as X and as low as X depending on what you want done." And again try to gauge their reaction. Any clue helps. If you have gained some idea of client budget, you can then work out what you think would be the most attractive package of deliverables that you can provide in their price range. If you don't have any good feel for their budget, you simply have to make your best guess as to what they want and give them a bid. Define your deliverables as clearly as possible so that you don't get caught by unexpected features that you didn't know were expected. You can always add them to the contract if they come up. Do not leave your deliverables undefined -- such as "HTML for all screens needed to complete the site." One other tip. Do not underestimate the amount of time you will need to spend with the client's team, nor the number of iterations that will be required before you can get your designs or deliverables finalized. It is fairly straightforward to figure out how long it will take you to perform a particular task. But factor in that you will have to do the same task over and over again. It's just part of good professional service. Joseph Selbie Founder, CEO Tristream Web Application Design http://www.tristream.com Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://gamma.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://gamma.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://gamma.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] functional designer?
"Indeed I just received from a client, who often involves me at the beginning of each project, an early draft of a document titled "functional spec for...", that did not say anything about the UI or the technical plumbing -- it was just a description of the various things the product had to do." I am coming into the thread rather late, so forgive me if I missed this earlier, but what you are describing here as a "functional spec", sounds an awful lot like the first iteration of the use cases we encounter in many companies. The use cases we've been involved with start with a description of what the user needs to be able to do -- regardless of where or how that will be accomplished in the application. As the use cases iterate, they become more specific and eventually include field level accuracy. I know that use case definitions and methods for developing them vary widely across companies that employ them, but the functional spec sure sounds like the same approach. Joseph Selbie Founder, CEO Tristream Web Application Design http://www.tristream.com Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://gamma.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://gamma.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://gamma.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] A List Apart web design survey results
>>I'd guess that in every profession most of the professionals are in fact very insulated by the companies they work for and don't actively follow trends in their profession online or off. >Perhaps this is a difference between innies and outies? Or do those of you who work for consulting firms also find the same thing in your colleagues? My company is quite small and the people I have chosen to work with very much keep up with trends - if anything, they push me to keep up with them, rather than the other way around J. I can't say that I know if this is unusual or normal among consulting firms. I'd guess it to be more normal since we are always competing for our next project, and any edge in knowledge we can show can make the difference in whether we win the next bid or not. One thing I do know is that our team is always more knowledgeable and skilled than the in-house teams we come in to support. Initially, I thought this was because upper management understood their in house team's short comings and were making a rational decision to augment their teams skills. But the more I've done this work the more I realize that neither management nor the in house teams have any idea where they stand skill-wise and knowledge-wise in relation to industry standards. Joseph Selbie Founder, CEO Tristream Web Application Design http://www.tristream.com Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://gamma.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://gamma.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://gamma.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] A List Apart web design survey results
>> I always ask job interviewees what sites they read to stay up >> to date, and more than half can't even answer the question at all. >I've seen this too. Ridiculously sad. I'd be curious to know whether this isn't just human nature. I'd guess that in every profession most of the professionals are in fact very insulated by the companies they work for and don't actively follow trends in their profession online or off. I suspect that the usual pyramid distribution applies to every profession. Those motivated and interested in continuing to improve and learn, form the small population at the tip of the pyramid, and the majority, less motivated (or perhaps they have other compelling life pursuits) and less interested, form the majority of the middle and base of the pyramid. Joseph Selbie Founder, CEO Tristream Web Application Design http://www.tristream.com Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://gamma.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://gamma.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://gamma.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://gamma.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://gamma.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://gamma.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Interview Questions - For interviewing a team lead/mgr
Aside from all the usual: 1. Ask for the references of people he has led. You might get someone to be candid. It's tough though, as you know, most people are afraid of consequences and will be circumspect -- and of course these are the candidate's references so it's likely they will be fiends or very positive co-workers. 2. Go out to lunch with the potential hire and include the person who would be his or her boss. Then see what kind of dynamics you can observe. Oddly enough, people who are great to me (a little too great) as their boss, are often tyrants to those under their authority. 3. Trust your intuition. Usually if I feel there is something a bit odd about someone, there usually is. Hard to present as a rational evaluation to those making the decision however. Unfortunately though, I think the age old trial and error method will be the only way you'll find out. Assuming he or she has the technical qualifications and experience you are looking for, and if he or she has good enough people skills to have been in the lead position in previous situations, chances are their skills will be good enough that they will figure out how to give good answers/impressions through the interview process about their leadership. Only time will reveal issues. Joseph Selbie Founder, CEO Tristream Web Application Design http://www.tristream.com -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of David Shaw Sent: Friday, October 12, 2007 7:52 AM To: IxDA Discuss Subject: [IxDA Discuss] Interview Questions - For interviewing a team lead/mgr Hi All, I know there's been discussions before about interview questions, but I don't think there's been discussion on this kind. I've got to interview a potential teammate who might end up leading us. I'm curious from those that have been through this as to good questions to ask to get a good indication of what that person will be like to work with, as well as possibly work for. Any guidance would be great! Thanks, David -- w: http://www.davidshaw.info Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://gamma.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://gamma.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://gamma.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://gamma.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://gamma.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://gamma.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Feature-based design, according to the Onion.
"It's an oldie, but a goodie. http://www.theonion.com/content/node/33930 I swear, I wanna read that at a poetry slam sometime." Andrew, I have to respond with my favorite Fake Steve post: http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/2006/12/regarding-our-iphone.html This one makes me laugh just thinking about it! Joseph Selbie Founder, CEO Tristream Web Application Design http://www.tristream.com Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://gamma.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://gamma.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://gamma.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Designing a portal from scratch
"In a nutshell, we are a restaurant type web site - think Zagat or Metromix, and want our 8000+ merchants to be able to edit information about their restaurants themselves via a portal. The IT team has rejected out of the box software and is interested in creating an in house solution. " Mike, I don't know of any out of the box software that fits your needs exactly either - most portal software has far more features than it sounds like you need. Sorry I couldn't be more helpful. Joseph Selbie Founder, CEO Tristream Web Application Design http://www.tristream.com Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://gamma.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://gamma.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://gamma.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Designing a portal from scratch
"I've just been tasked with designing a customer portal (i.e. extranet) from scratch. Has anyone done anything like this before, or can anyone point me toward some reference materials?" What industry? Customers have a wide variety of needs :). Joseph Selbie Founder, CEO Tristream Web Application Development http://www.tristream.com Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://gamma.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://gamma.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://gamma.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] JOB UX Designer, Fulltime/Permanent Role, Recruiter, Redmond, WA
I don't see how you can even *think* about design without being aware of the limitations of your medium. You may try to push past those limits but you've got to have some awareness of the limits. I think it is nonsense to say that knowing the limits keeps you from pushing the limits...but I think it is crazy to say that you should design with no awareness of limits at all. Design is holistic -- the more you know and understand the better!! Joseph Selbie Founder, CEO Tristream Web Application Design http://www.tristream.com -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Josh Seiden Sent: Tuesday, October 09, 2007 10:40 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] JOB UX Designer, Fulltime/Permanent Role, Recruiter, Redmond, WA Wait. How is AJAX an example of "thinking outside the box" from a *design* perspective? It's clever, sure. But all AJAX does is bring a subset of existing desktop-style interactions to the browser. This is clever development, not clever design. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://gamma.ixda.org/discuss?post=21232 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://gamma.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://gamma.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://gamma.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://gamma.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://gamma.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://gamma.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] JOB UX Designer, Fulltime/Permanent Role, Recruiter, Redmond, WA
We have a brilliant display coder on our team. He rocks when it comes to pushing the edge in AJAX type projects. He understands how his code will need to be implemented and is often helping our client's programming teams make better use of their environment. He's also a really good IX designer. He doesn't let his knowledge of the underlying code push him into doing things the easy way. He stays focused on the needs of the users. He is rare is my experience. However, in practical terms, we use him mostly for coding because there is just so much to do. We have other very talented IX designers on our team, we don't have other people with his brilliance in the code. So, I would tend say that the two roles can coexist in one person temperament wise and skill wise -- but there just isn't enough time on projects for a person to do both. Joseph Selbie Founder, CEO Tristream Web Application Design http://www.tristream.com -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Katie Albers Sent: Tuesday, October 09, 2007 9:27 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] JOB UX Designer, Fulltime/Permanent Role, Recruiter, Redmond, WA At 9:54 AM -0400 10/9/07, Matthew Nish-Lapidus wrote: >I humbly disagree... A good technical background in >html/css/javascript allows an interaction designer the freedom to >prototype interfaces in a much more efficient way. Working with a >full-time programmer to prototype can be time consuming and isn't >always possible. > >If you understand the technology and how it works then you know not >only what is and isn't possible, but how systems react and change in a >very detailed way. As an interaction designer for the web you need to >keep up with interface technologies or you won't know what to design. Let me see...how do I put this politely...If we'd been adhering to this logic in 1993, you'd be out of a job. So would I. The Web was strictly a markup language. People developing perl apps for pages were on the cutting edge...and that was purely for very limited functions...it certainly had nothing to do with interface. If your background is in the system, then you can't have the viewpoint of the user. The more completely aware you are of the former, and the more you design around it, the less you can design for the latter. The reason UX exists is precisely because all the incarnations of the work that preceded it which were supposed to enable users rather than accommodating machines have disappeared into system/software/hardware fields...systems analysis to choose one at random. Being able to prototype is, first of all, something that exists at many levels...paper, interactive wireframes, basic html, and so forth...prototypes are not the same thing as a .01 functioning version of the product. The impossible becomes possible when you don't know it can't be done. Deeply understanding a programming language traps most coders in its logic. It's the difference between telling people "Find a way to do this" and "Optimize this code" and the results vary accordingly. >On 10/9/07, Ari Feldman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> the only value that having a programming or technical background when it >> comes to interaction/interface design is understanding the limitations of >> what's possible under a given technical platform or operating system. this >> background really comes in handy when it comes to designing efficient and/or >> usable interfaces and working around physical restrictions that various >> technologies impose. > >-- >Matt Nish-Lapidus >email/gtalk: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Katie -- -- Katie Albers User Experience Consulting & Project Management [EMAIL PROTECTED] Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://gamma.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://gamma.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://gamma.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://gamma.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://gamma.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://gamma.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] IxD Managers (was: d schools)
I want to second Dante's comments. I am a manager and a designer. In fact, I built my company doing both. I don't get to design as much as I would if I was without my other responsibilities, but I still take the lead on projects and spend time in the creative nexus of design -- just me and the screen. I would also say that in many ways managing has helped me be a better designer. I appreciate the *dynamics* of creating good design -- which is more than the brilliance of a particular solution (although that is necessary). I think it also has made me a better interpreter and persuader to the business and approval team (the client). I can win them to designs that might have been left by the wayside if I hadn't been able to get them to appreciate the advantages. I am a firm believer that design is a holistic process -- and being a manager and designer has given me a more holistic understanding of the entire process. If you like facilitating teams and team processes, I wouldn't hold back from a management position for fear of not being part of the design any longer. Joseph Selbie Founder, CEO Tristream Web Application Design http://www.tristream.com -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Dante Murphy Sent: Tuesday, October 09, 2007 8:59 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [IxDA Discuss] IxD Managers (was: d schools) [snip] This is where most will end up, because too often the next step in pay grade is only achievable by moving into management. This of course is a terrible idea because it takes the best designers and promotes them into management, where they can't design. [/snip] [snip] But to become a manager, when "managing" is an entirely different discipline and requires different talent, just to conform to a broken system, seeking better rewards, seems like the wrong path to me... [/snip] I'm an IxD manager, and I still design. A lot. My boss, who is a VP, also designs. A lot. Becoming a manager doesn't lobotomize you. Sure, not everyone has the aptitude or interest to manage others, but I find it very rewarding. In fact, I won't seriously consider any position that doesn't give me the opportunity to mentor, recruit, and reward other IxD professionals. I get as much a kick out of that as I do from executing a good design. As I've mentioned in other posts, I created the role of "Principle IxD" in our group to attract and retain the kind of designer who just wants to design, and doesn't want to be burdened with managerial responsibilities. It's a role I've held in the past (and enjoyed), so I know its value. If you're in an organization that doesn't have capable designers in management positions, or doesn't have a Principle IxD-type role...the burden is on you to educate your peers and continue to demonstrate the value you add to your company. Like every other IxD with 10+ years experience, I've had to do this many times. It's a hard fight, too often unrewarded, but the landscape is much better these days than it was in 1998 when you were either a programmer, a graphic designer, or unemployed. And if you can't change the world you're in, move on. The opportunities are out there, and the IxD managers are waiting for you. Dante Dante Murphy | Director of Information Architecture | D I G I T A S H E A L T H 229 South 18th Street, 2nd Floor | Rittenhouse Square | Philadelphia, PA 19103 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | www.digitashealth.com Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://gamma.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://gamma.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://gamma.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://gamma.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://gamma.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://gamma.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Guidance on building a job-search engine
This is a very simple suggestion. You may already employ it. But perhaps tagging would add that something extra you are looking for. Connecting seeker to job and job to seeker may be facilitated by searches that are aided by lots of metadata. Tagging, though free form and therefore a little messy, may give you the depth of metadata you need without having to put people through extensive questionnaires like a dating service. Joseph Selbie Founder, CEO Tristream Web Application Design http://www.tristream.com -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Bryan Minihan Sent: Monday, October 08, 2007 5:49 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [IxDA Discuss] Guidance on building a job-search engine I'm moving on from my current job to a tech lead position building a social-networking-esque startup that connects people looking for opportunities to people who provide them. Basically, it's a job-search site for a niche market. The nature of the niche requires users to upload videos of their work, so leveraging an existing service probably won't work. I'm under NDA for now but may be able to provide more details in the future... Anyway, from the above description, you can guess that I've already identified this as basically a matching process, and I hope to optimize that process to help the users of the site. I have TONS of ideas for how to improve things, since right now there is no real connectivity built in - you enter your profile, send in your video, and hope for the best. I'm looking for some literature or books that might help me look at this process more holistically, learn from others who have built successful matchmaking or job-search sites, and avoid running down the impossible paths. I'll be building the tech team from scratch, so need some gritty details to go with an overall approach to the user's problem (so read: algorithms, plus possible sample personas and process flows). I don't know if the above exists, but if you want to learn more let me know, or if you can recommend any good reading on the topic of sites that connect people (with a purpose) together, please post or let me know via email. Thanks! - Bryan http://www.bryanminihan.com Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://gamma.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://gamma.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://gamma.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://gamma.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://gamma.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://gamma.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Target.com Loses Accessibility Law Suit
> What I think is much more likely to happen is that -- should the > courts in > fact decree that equal access must be granted to certain types of > publically > accessible websites, such as Target -- competition will increase > among the > readers for market share and they will begin to innovate and > improve rapidly > in response to the opportunity to increase their revenue. "Unless that market is bigger than $100M USD, I seriously doubt that. I'd be surprised if that market was bigger than $10M USD." So you think that even if Target, Walmart, K-Mart, JC Penny, Amazon, Ebay, Google, Yahoo, Cisco, MS, Apple, Adobe, Bank of America and thousands of other publically accessed websites were required to improve their accessibility, that the money available to the reader companies wouldn't increase? Walmart alone might put $100M a year into developing a reader if the alternative is a class action suit. We are talking about companies whose combined revenue is in the *trillions* of dollars. You can bet some money is going to be thrown at the problem to solve it! Joseph Selbie Founder, CEO Tristream Web Application Design http://www.tristream.com Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://gamma.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://gamma.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://gamma.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Target.com Loses Accessibility Law Suit
"If the proper hooks are in the APIs supplied by Apple and MS, and further, those API hooks across the platforms are *EXACTLY* the same, 100% as forced by government regulations, then it's not hard at all for everyone else to follow and stay in compliance." You left me here Andrei. Aside from being highly unlikely to happen, aren't you in effect advocating that the OS developers become the arbiters of progress? Or worse yet that "forced government regulations" become the arbiters of progress? I would much rather count on market forces and free-wheeling innovation to move software evolution forward -- even in the chaotic and messy way it tends to happen. What I think is much more likely to happen is that -- should the courts in fact decree that equal access must be granted to certain types of publically accessible websites, such as Target -- competition will increase among the readers for market share and they will begin to innovate and improve rapidly in response to the opportunity to increase their revenue. And, just as happened with browsers, big players may enter the competition, such as MS. We'll undoubtedly end up with the same messy, blurry, frustrating mix of standards and approaches that we have had with the browsers -- but we'll end up with some really great solutions that no standards body or government agency would ever have come up with. Joseph Selbie Founder, CEO Tristream Web Application Design Http://www.tristream.com Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] List Guidelines http://beta.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://beta.ixda.org/help Unsubscribe http://beta.ixda.org/unsubscribe Questions .. [EMAIL PROTECTED] Home ... http://beta.ixda.org
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Target.com Loses Accessibility Law Suit
"Reader's are not the key. They are just a kludge to solve a larger problem, and one that won't go away and will get more and more complicated. Why? Because web browsers and the whole internet experience was *always* going to cycle back to the kind of richer interaction that existed long before the web browser existed. (Basically the entire 80s and early 90s of the software world.) The whole "web" thing was nothing but a pit stop on the evolution of the computer and digital technology. Things are going back to drag and drop, multi-windowing systems, etc. Given this, the problem is not a reader problem of reading "web" pages. It's a computer problem and how its core interactions pertain to people who are disabled." OK. I'll bite :). How was the evolution of computer software going to have served the disabled if it hadn't been distracted by this "whole "web" thing"? Sophisticated or simple, web or desk top, the challenge remains the same. How do you take a primarily visual experience and provide it verbally, or sonically, or otherwise? In the simplest sense the reader is an interpreter. It translates visual into audio. I haven't heard of any core, structural, intrinsic way in which any software or hardware system can be designed that allows for visual complexity to be more easily translated into audio or other input using an assistive technology. If you are talking about direct implants or something of that nature, where you enable a person to see who can't ordinarily see, then I think you are going beyond the issue of software and hardware design and into the realm of abling the disabled. I'm all for it and I hope that it can happen. Meanwhile you need a translator from visual to audio. Perhaps all you are really advocating is that MS and Apple should take the responsibility to provide good translators with their OS's. Or put another way, they should be in the reader business whether they like it or not. I doubt they would agree. But even if they did, and they develop built in software support for the disabled, the people designing and coding the software will still have to understand how that built in capacity works and make sure that they have coded to its standards. I don't see any way you don't loop back to the same challenge. And I circle back to my original issue. Even if good readers evolve, or OS's incorporate the task of providing assistance, it will do so by evolving standard user conventions. What happens when the next wave of new capabilities hits? The assistive technology will lag behind... Joseph Selbie Founder, CEO Tristream Web Application Design http://www.tristream.com Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] List Guidelines http://beta.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://beta.ixda.org/help Unsubscribe http://beta.ixda.org/unsubscribe Questions .. [EMAIL PROTECTED] Home ... http://beta.ixda.org
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Target.com Loses Accessibility Law Suit
> I have to disagree. Even if there had been complete and well > implemented standards for all the elements that go into AJAX (which > their weren't) reader developers would still not have been able to > anticipate how innovative developers put AJAX to use. And who knows > what the next AJAX will be... "That's true enough. Which points to the larger problem: Real accessibility will only come from Apple and Microsoft... " Why? Why does it point to OS? Let me give you an example that may make my case that the challenge of accessibility on the web has very little to do with standards, or lack thereof, or the OS. It is almost entirely a matter of the standards of the reader. The Jaws reader, currently the most popular, "reads" the web page's code starting at the top and works its way down the code stack. One of the most annoying results of this (for the user) is that once a user (using the reader) has made their way through the navigation choices (assuming for a moment that navigation is near the top of the stack), and then made a selection, the new web page is opened -- and once again the reader starts its slow and laborious way through the entire navigation again starting from the top before the user can get to the content on the page they just chose. Because this was such a recurring complaint, Jaws (and other readers) configured the reader so that if the comment "skip navigation" (unseen to the sighted user on the rendered screen) is inserted in the code, then the reader user can opt to skip the navigation and proceed to the content. "Skip navigation" is not an html standard, nor a standard browser control, nor anything to do with the underlining OS. It is a reader control. The readers capabilities are really in control of the experience. I am admittedly focused on how readers are used on web pages. You probably have other experience of assistive technologies for desk top software which I don't have -- and which may well rest on OS issues. But since this thread started with the Target suit, I have been staying with that kind of problem of accessibility, and from my experience the reader is the key. One way to look at a reader is that it is a very specialized browser. If you want a user to have a good experience using any particular browser you have to code to the browser. There are many standards that work across the usual mix of browsers, but all of them have "pull your hair out" differences. The Jaws reader and its ilk have even greater differences. They are all over the map right now as to how or whether they respond to javascript. You have to learn them and live with them. They keep improving and going through version upgrades just like the rest of the browsers, but they never quite do what you want them to, and so far at least, they lag well behind the rest of the regular browsers as far as what level of complexity of user experience is possible. Joseph Selbie Founder, CEO Tristream Web Application Design http://www.tristream.com Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] List Guidelines http://beta.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://beta.ixda.org/help Unsubscribe http://beta.ixda.org/unsubscribe Questions .. [EMAIL PROTECTED] Home ... http://beta.ixda.org
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Target.com Loses Accessibility Law Suit
"So yes, the main issue is the OS itself and how accessible it is and how technology is implemented. This is squarely on Apple and Microsoft. After that however is the very legitimate issue of how browser implement standards and their versions of web technologies to make them accessible. And with this issue, one has to understand that without 100% consistency and compliance on the part of the browser makers, designers and developers of web based technologies have little to no chance of ever really addressing the accessibility properly." I have to disagree. Even if there had been complete and well implemented standards for all the elements that go into AJAX (which their weren't) reader developers would still not have been able to anticipate how innovative developers put AJAX to use. And who knows what the next AJAX will be... (Andrei, I think you misunderstood my point #1 below. I was saying that readers lag behind for the same *reasons* that utilities lag behind -- not in any way *because* utilities lag behind.) Joseph Selbie Founder, CEO Tristream Web Application Design http://www.tristream.com -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Andrei Herasimchuk Sent: Sunday, October 07, 2007 11:51 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] Target.com Loses Accessibility Law Suit On Oct 7, 2007, at 11:04 AM, Joseph Selbie wrote: > 1.) The reader developers are in the position of having to catch up > with new > OS and browser releases all the time. For example I recently > started using > Vista. But still, 9 months since the OS was released, many of my > favorite > utility programs have not made versions that will work on Vista. What the reader developers create does not rely on utilities. That's an unrelated problem and has little to do with you larger point, I think. > 2.) The reader developers are in the position of having to catch up > with > innovative uses of the OS and browsers. New ways of exploiting the > DOM are > being created all the time. Thousands of developers are expanding > the number > of ways you can do things using the basic tools available -- and > sometimes > those new ways blow right past what a reader is likely to be able > to do. This is true. But the reader developers also don't implement standards and rendering in the same way, which is a separate problem but one that further exacerbates how accessibility is implemented into web products and services. So yes, the main issue is the OS itself and how accessible it is and how technology is implemented. This is squarely on Apple and Microsoft. After that however is the very legitimate issue of how browser implement standards and their versions of web technologies to make them accessible. And with this issue, one has to understand that without 100% consistency and compliance on the part of the browser makers, designers and developers of web based technologies have little to no chance of ever really addressing the accessibility properly. So a business like Target.com is three levels deep and two level removed from the technology itself needed to make compliance a true reality, and has basically *no* control or input into the base technologies themselves. Why again are they the target of this lawsuit? (No pun intended.) -- Andrei Herasimchuk Principal, Involution Studios innovating the digital world e. [EMAIL PROTECTED] c. +1 408 306 6422 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] List Guidelines http://beta.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://beta.ixda.org/help Unsubscribe http://beta.ixda.org/unsubscribe Questions .. [EMAIL PROTECTED] Home ... http://beta.ixda.org Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] List Guidelines http://beta.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://beta.ixda.org/help Unsubscribe http://beta.ixda.org/unsubscribe Questions .. [EMAIL PROTECTED] Home ... http://beta.ixda.org
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Target.com Loses Accessibility Law Suit
Even if there were more cooperation among OS and browser developers (not that I'm expecting any) there would probably still be a lag effect with the reader developers for two reasons: 1.) The reader developers are in the position of having to catch up with new OS and browser releases all the time. For example I recently started using Vista. But still, 9 months since the OS was released, many of my favorite utility programs have not made versions that will work on Vista. 2.) The reader developers are in the position of having to catch up with innovative uses of the OS and browsers. New ways of exploiting the DOM are being created all the time. Thousands of developers are expanding the number of ways you can do things using the basic tools available -- and sometimes those new ways blow right past what a reader is likely to be able to do. I think readers will always lag, just as standards determinations always lag. The reader developers are not in a position to anticipate what new capabilities will be needed. They can only respond once new conventions become established. Joseph Selbie Founder, CEO Tristream Web Application Design http://www.tristream.com -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Andrei Herasimchuk Sent: Sunday, October 07, 2007 10:07 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] Target.com Loses Accessibility Law Suit On Oct 7, 2007, at 9:44 AM, Todd Zaki Warfel wrote: > It's not the job of MS and Apple to hold back in order to allow > companies like Adobe, Quark, and others to stay status quo. Instead, > the OS companies push forward and software companies have to follow > and keep up. This same principle applies to screen reader companies. > The web is the OS. The screen readers are just like Adobe, Quark, and > others. They need to pick up the pace and stay current. Who is "they?" The software makers? Are you kidding? Have you ever developed a cross-platform product like Photoshop or XPress? Do you know all the myriad of issues that go in making such a product? Obviously I do, so I'm obviously going to have a lot of strong opinions on the subject. The part you seem to be leaving out is that the software vendors are trying to create software for multiple platforms and multiple languages while trying to add features their customers want which has little to do with what MS and Apple care about. They also do so while being given no input into the strategies and approaches of both Apple and MS, having instead to basically figure out how they are going to handle dealing with technology changes after the fact. Both MS and Apple only care about themselves and seemingly do all they can to make cross platform development about near impossible without extreme amounts of compromise and effort as t is. So, if you want to make the browser makers and operating system makers *force* to comply to make cross-browser and cross-platform application development more of a reality without that major compromise, and in doing so *force* MS, Apple, Netscape and the Firefox team to make accessibility an integral part of their technology rather than a tacked on afterthought, then something might actually get done with regard to all this kubuki as it pertains to giving the disabled a real means to interact with technology. -- Andrei Herasimchuk Principal, Involution Studios innovating the digital world e. [EMAIL PROTECTED] c. +1 408 306 6422 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] List Guidelines http://beta.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://beta.ixda.org/help Unsubscribe http://beta.ixda.org/unsubscribe Questions .. [EMAIL PROTECTED] Home ... http://beta.ixda.org Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] List Guidelines http://beta.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://beta.ixda.org/help Unsubscribe http://beta.ixda.org/unsubscribe Questions .. [EMAIL PROTECTED] Home ... http://beta.ixda.org
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Target.com Loses Accessibility Law Suit
In a ideal world yes. But the screen readers are businesses just like any other. They have limited resources, budgets and markets. Of course, if mandatory compliance does happen, their position and importance will change and, in fact, the most forward moving reader company will make the most money, Supply, demand, competition - they may not be the ideal way to bring about change - but they can be very effective. Joseph Selbie Founder, CEO Tristream Web Application Design http://www.tristream.com This is very disconcerting. If the goal is to enable disabled people to access the content, then shouldn't they be making the screen reader companies keep up with modern technology and the rest of the world instead of making companies stay back behind at the lagging capabilities of the screen readers? On Oct 6, 2007, at 5:31 PM, Joseph Selbie wrote: If the courts decide in favor of mandatory compliance, the trade off companies may have to make is that they design middle of the road sites to cater to the needs of the disabled, rather than be able to really pay attention to the needs and wants of the majority of their users. Cheers! Todd Zaki Warfel President, Design Researcher Messagefirst | Designing Information. Beautifully. -- Contact Info Voice: (215) 825-7423 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] AIM:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Blog:http://toddwarfel.com -- In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] List Guidelines http://beta.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://beta.ixda.org/help Unsubscribe http://beta.ixda.org/unsubscribe Questions .. [EMAIL PROTECTED] Home ... http://beta.ixda.org
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Target.com Loses Accessibility Law Suit
Alex, I appreciate all your points -- you can "bake into" the code, as you put it, everything a reader needs to navigate a page and accomplish tasks. But that isn't my point. It can be done, is done and we've done it. My point is that that means you code to the reader. What if you want to do things for your users that the reader(s) is not capable of doing? Currently, all the reader's capabilities lag behind the leading edge. What if the reader defines the leading edge? There are a lot of implication there. If the courts decide in favor of mandatory compliance, the trade off companies may have to make is that they design middle of the road sites to cater to the needs of the disabled, rather than be able to really pay attention to the needs and wants of the majority of their users. Or they would be faced with building and maintaining two code bases -- a prospect most companies do not want to face. I suspect most of them will develop one code base that supports both groups. We just went through a project where the company had decided to support ADA and 508 guidelines to a limited extent. Even without them deciding on full compliance, we had to pull back from many cool features that we would ordinarily have included. There are a lot of clever people out there and I'm sure if this does become mandatory for a broad number of companies, then very clever solutions will be developed. And hey, we'll probably all get some work out of it :) But I think this challenge isn't met just by establishing standards. I think a better analogy for the impact of this, should the courts make it mandatory, is that it would be similar to the courts saying, "OK, every company's public websites have to be backwardly compatible to IE 4.0, and the person using 4.0 has to be able to accomplish whatever everyone else is able to accomplish using newer versions." I'm sure everyone will be able to trash this analogy in specific ways -- but I think it is a better way of describing the challenge than simply saying we need to come up with agreed upon standards. Joseph Selbie Founder, CEO Tristream Web Application Design http://www.tristream.com -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Alex Robinson Sent: Saturday, October 06, 2007 1:52 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] Target.com Loses Accessibility Law Suit >expanding again within the expanded information -- done in I-frames) that >are made possible through javascript. The sighted can do this easily by >clicking on the expand icon (usually a triangle). This is a really great >user feature. It allows a user to get to information fast. > >Try making that accessible using Jaws. Recent version of JAWS do allow for AJAX stylee interaction - so long as you're careful and know what you're doing - ie. make sure that the screen reader's buffer gets updated if the page content is changes (and no be changing so many different elements that the result is just confusing - but that speaks to more general issues of usability) http://juicystudio.com/article/making-ajax-work-with-screen-readers.php http://juicystudio.com/article/improving-ajax-applications-for-jaws-users.ph p Also, there's no reason you couldn't offer the user the option of interacting without AJAX-style interactions. Unless of course what you've built only works if you've got javascript turned on... The accessibility issues you actually have (in what you've described) a) making the reader click on the disclosure triangle - this doesn't just make it inaccessible for screen readers but also, if not inaccessible, harder to use for people who use their keyboard for in-page navigation. If you set the disclosure triangle to do its business when it receives focus then both sets of people would be accommodated. b) using iframes as your method to load external content rather than a scrollable element within the original page. (Of course, you may be doing something cross-domainy that requires such a sleight of hand) Even so, it should still be possible to inform the user that the page's content has been updated. At 18:39 -0700 5/10/07, Joseph Selbie wrote: >Imagine a reader trying to make sense of a site >built in flex! Or one heavily dependent on widgets! Yes, imagine that! http://www.adobe.com/macromedia/accessibility/features/flex/jaws.html Not ideal (accessibility off by default!), but Macromedia didn't rebuild Flash with advice from Mad Monk Jakob Nielsen for nothing. As for widgets, Dojo and other javascript libraries are taking great care to ensure that they are as accessible as possible eg. http://dojotoolkit.org/book/dojo-book-0-9/part-2-dijit/a11y/dojo-accessibili ty-resources >Here is the core of the challenge: The way the ADA guidelines state it, if >you are compliant, that mea
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Target.com Loses Accessibility Law Suit
"Content providers will only have to meet standards defined by the government/courts. Assistive technology (like screen readers) has no apparent liability at the moment." The difficulty we have run into is not about standards, but about duplicating the user features (such as expanding a table row, and then expanding again within the expanded information -- done in I-frames) that are made possible through javascript. The sighted can do this easily by clicking on the expand icon (usually a triangle). This is a really great user feature. It allows a user to get to information fast. Try making that accessible using Jaws. And that is just one example. Web 2.0 (as I hate to call it) has layer upon layer of cool user features made possible through Javascript or other similar coding solutions. Imagine a reader trying to make sense of a site built in flex! Or one heavily dependent on widgets! Here is the core of the challenge: The way the ADA guidelines state it, if you are compliant, that means any user, even if using assisted technology, should be able to "accomplish" the same tasks as the non-disabled. In practical terms, this means building a separate, simpler website, if you are trying to do complex transactions. Or else the person would have an experience with Jaws (or any other reader) that would be so frustrating that it might as well be inaccessible. I will be very interested to see how the issue plays out in the courts. Joseph Selbie Founder, CEO Tristream Web Application Design http://www.tristream.com Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] List Guidelines http://beta.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://beta.ixda.org/help Unsubscribe http://beta.ixda.org/unsubscribe Questions .. [EMAIL PROTECTED] Home ... http://beta.ixda.org
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Target.com Loses Accessibility Law Suit
I'll make it even more complicated: it isn't just a matter of whether the screen reader (say Jaws) can read your code. The question will become can the reader effectively make every feature and function usable by the user. And what will be the technical definition of usable by the user -- will it be considered usable even if it takes a half an hour and seven tries? -- or does it have to be *as* usable as the sighted experience? -- and I don't even want to go there :). Joseph Selbie Founder, CEO Tristream Web Application Design http://www.tristream.com -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of David Malouf Sent: Friday, October 05, 2007 10:00 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] Target.com Loses Accessibility Law Suit My question is? Where is the responsibility of the Screen Readers vs. the responsibility of the code creator/content creators? Who do you sue? The ramp builder or the wheelchair builder? I think we have a problem that the ramp technology is not keeping up with the wheelchairs. Of course what Kamen did was to disregard the ramps completely and just build a wheelchair that never needed a ramp. hmmm? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the improved ixda.org http://beta.ixda.org/discuss?post=21080 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] List Guidelines http://beta.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://beta.ixda.org/help Unsubscribe http://beta.ixda.org/unsubscribe Questions .. [EMAIL PROTECTED] Home ... http://beta.ixda.org Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] List Guidelines http://beta.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://beta.ixda.org/help Unsubscribe http://beta.ixda.org/unsubscribe Questions .. [EMAIL PROTECTED] Home ... http://beta.ixda.org
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Target.com Loses Accessibility Law Suit
Dan, Thank you for posting this. It could have a big impact on all of our work going forward. We've been involved with making sites 508 compliant and it makes the project much more challenging. What would be helpful is if there were fixed guidelines as to where the line is. Right now the line is rather blurry. Joseph Selbie Founder, CEO Tristream Web Application Design http://www.tristream.com -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Daniel Yang Sent: Thursday, October 04, 2007 12:08 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [IxDA Discuss] Target.com Loses Accessibility Law Suit Since today seems to be an introductory day, I'm relatively new to the list as well. I noticed there was finally a ruling on this case. Not sure of the ramifications yet though, but this may be a major shift for any web business, at least in California. Instead of accessibility being a best practice issue it may become a legal one even outside of government work. http://www.901am.com/2007/court-rules-against-target-on-website- accessibility-lawsuit.html -Dan Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] List Guidelines http://beta.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://beta.ixda.org/help Unsubscribe http://beta.ixda.org/unsubscribe Questions .. [EMAIL PROTECTED] Home ... http://beta.ixda.org Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] List Guidelines http://beta.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://beta.ixda.org/help Unsubscribe http://beta.ixda.org/unsubscribe Questions .. [EMAIL PROTECTED] Home ... http://beta.ixda.org
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Who designs what? (see diagram...)
Russell, Thank you for the clarification. I'm not sure it would be helpful as far as your immediate purpose for your diagram, but I would add team lead, or lead designer, or some such title to your list, and I would show all the roles you identified funneling into the lead designer. In my experience providing contract services inside over 100 different companies, and in a formal study Tristream conducted about how teams structure themselves to best develop web applications, the best teams always had a lead designer(s) (sometimes it was a pair, rarely a triumvirate). This person had the most holistic view of the project -- business goals, user needs and IT capabilities and limitations -- and sat in a creative nexus in the center of the project. Sometimes this person came from a programming track and had become comfortable with the tools and practices of design. More often it was senior IX designer able to effect the entire team's design process at a user strategy and user experience level. Sometimes they actually designed, other times they directed other's designs. But it was always clear that the lead held the vision. Joseph Selbie Founder, CEO Tristream Web Application Design http://www.tristream.com -Original Message- From: Wilson, Russell [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, October 04, 2007 12:14 PM To: Joseph Selbie; 'IxDA List' Subject: RE: [IxDA Discuss] Who designs what? (see diagram...) Joseph, No, I don't. I called them out to raise awareness among non-design teams about the different things we designers do. Like you, I have three distinct roles: 1) visual designer 2) IA/Interaction designer 3) Usability expert/testing -----Original Message- From: Joseph Selbie [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, October 04, 2007 1:30 PM To: Wilson, Russell; 'IxDA List' Subject: RE: [IxDA Discuss] Who designs what? (see diagram...) Russell, Do you actually have separate people responsible for Interaction Design, Visual Design, Information Design and Information Architecture Design? I can clearly see the need for a separate visual designer, because that is a skill that rarely crosses over with the others. But your other three design roles seem to overlap so much that it hard for me to see where you are helped by separating them. I am probably projecting my experience with web application design onto your diagram, but in all the teams I've led or been involved with I would be hard pressed to separate interaction, information and information architecture design into separate processes. Joseph Selbie Founder, CEO Tristream Web Application Design http://www.tristream.com -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Wilson, Russell Sent: Thursday, October 04, 2007 9:05 AM To: IxDA List Subject: [IxDA Discuss] Who designs what? (see diagram...) Given that "design" is a very overloaded and broad term, I often find it necessary to communicate what "product design" is responsible for, and "who designs what". To that end, I created this very basic diagram. I'd love to get feedback from members of the list. The purpose is to spell out who is designing what and provide an indication of: 1) structure of the two depts. 2) responsibilities of the two depts. 3) communication between the two depts. What did I leave out? Is this the stupidest thing you've ever seen? (obviously this would be part of a discussion and not intended to stand by itself, although I suppose I could evolve it to become more self-explanatory) [cid:image001.jpg@01C80675.A55CC5C0] Russell Wilson | Director of Product Design NetQoS, Inc. | 5001 Plaza on the Lake, Austin, TX 78746 512.334.3725 (v) | 512.422.4155 (m) | [EMAIL PROTECTED]<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> NetQoS: Performance Experts www.netqos.com<http://www.netqos.com/> Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] List Guidelines http://beta.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://beta.ixda.org/help Unsubscribe http://beta.ixda.org/unsubscribe Questions .. [EMAIL PROTECTED] Home ... http://beta.ixda.org
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Who designs what? (see diagram...)
Russell, Do you actually have separate people responsible for Interaction Design, Visual Design, Information Design and Information Architecture Design? I can clearly see the need for a separate visual designer, because that is a skill that rarely crosses over with the others. But your other three design roles seem to overlap so much that it hard for me to see where you are helped by separating them. I am probably projecting my experience with web application design onto your diagram, but in all the teams I've led or been involved with I would be hard pressed to separate interaction, information and information architecture design into separate processes. Joseph Selbie Founder, CEO Tristream Web Application Design http://www.tristream.com -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Wilson, Russell Sent: Thursday, October 04, 2007 9:05 AM To: IxDA List Subject: [IxDA Discuss] Who designs what? (see diagram...) Given that "design" is a very overloaded and broad term, I often find it necessary to communicate what "product design" is responsible for, and "who designs what". To that end, I created this very basic diagram. I'd love to get feedback from members of the list. The purpose is to spell out who is designing what and provide an indication of: 1) structure of the two depts. 2) responsibilities of the two depts. 3) communication between the two depts. What did I leave out? Is this the stupidest thing you've ever seen? (obviously this would be part of a discussion and not intended to stand by itself, although I suppose I could evolve it to become more self-explanatory) [cid:image001.jpg@01C80675.A55CC5C0] Russell Wilson | Director of Product Design NetQoS, Inc. | 5001 Plaza on the Lake, Austin, TX 78746 512.334.3725 (v) | 512.422.4155 (m) | [EMAIL PROTECTED]<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> NetQoS: Performance Experts www.netqos.com<http://www.netqos.com/> Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] List Guidelines http://beta.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://beta.ixda.org/help Unsubscribe http://beta.ixda.org/unsubscribe Questions .. [EMAIL PROTECTED] Home ... http://beta.ixda.org
