Boxes and Arrows: Comments by Jim Dustin

Jim Dustin — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 01:40:30 GMT

First of all, thank you Clifton for your spot-on commentary. I’ve been waiting to hear these words for some time now. I agree that design is a form of contemporary art and has been for some time. The designs of cars in the mid to late 1930’s totally reflected their view of a streamlined future as many contemporary designs of each era reflect cultural or aspirational shifts. Web sites designed just ten years ago are light years behind where we find ourselves today (the wayback machine provides a wonderfully sobering view of this – http://www.archive.org/index.php). This fine tradition of design reflection has been in place since Leonardo. He was as comfortable dissecting the human body to understand muscle, as he was designing helicopters and other “industrial design” used for the military. So to see the comment from Vytas… “Artistic skills have nothing to do with interaction design or visual design. “Design”, even visual design, is not “art”, even though they share a common touch point in being aesthetically pleasing (sometimes).... was shocking. It is akin to stating that sight has nothing to do with visual design! Anyway, designers are often misunderstood and vary quite a bit in talent across a broad range of definition. But if one is a genuine designer, one is most definitely an artist.

Jim Dustin — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 01:40:24 GMT

I think somehow this became a discussion about the premise that Art is one definition and Design is another. I evidently did not understand your point and failed to make mine. Agreed that French is not German, but it is a language. Sky-diving is not scuba diving—but it is a sport.

I understood Clifton’s post to be about the commonality of what might be called the “creative view” -versus what might be called the “scientific view,” no more no less.

In my experience, scientists are not very good at creating “attractive things” to the Don Norman quote, nor particularly adept at solving design issues raised in your final paragraph (mileage may vary). For 35 years or so I have been a fine artist, a graphic designer, an interaction designer and an illustrator. As you state, it’s important to understand the distinction—and I agree. My point is that it’s also important to understand the commonalities within a creative view. I could not possibly handle each discipline equally, but I am the same person.

Of course where the scientific views of research, cognitive, perceptual, psychological and all of the factors that would enter the design arena for-hire are concerned, they are a paramount part of the equation, but not the sum. Useit.com or nngroup.com are not elegant websites in my opinion, but they are highly scientific and usable.

I’m not suggesting that design (of human computer interfaces) is a binary decision for using either a scientific view or an artistic (design) view. I believe it is a requirement to find a blend that works for the end user/participant.

As for the reference to contemporary art, I think your definition is too narrow. Warhol broke open commercial products as contemporary art 45 years ago. The G4 cube from Apple Design Group is in the Museum of Modern Art, even though the product failed. An iPhone is way closer to a work of art, than it is a work of science, even though both disciplines are blended into it. However the elegance of the design (the art) causes an emotional response. I include product design all the way to graffiti within the definition of contemporary art. Things that are in our lives and surround us, qualify as art and if they are new, they are contemporary. Thanks for the stimulating opinions ;)

Jim Dustin — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 20:55:12 GMT

Spot on article! Like walking down the street and stepping in a puddle- only to discover it’s 20 feet deep!

You’ve so accurately found all the usual suspects of failure and pointed out that UX is often tacked on to major product efforts like some kind of optional shiny coating (the often implied premise that after all, something can still WORK if it doesn’t shine)!

The management behavior of hiding from accountability for bad decisions is at a chronic level in most large organizations and I think this is due to the popular practice of managing upward, also known as CYA and kissing up. After all, this is where bonuses and promotions come from. There is no incentive to find and stave off failure. There is no appetite to hear about problems and attack them ruthlessly. For this to really work, it has to be part of the process.

One statement stood out for me… “Complete alignment to strategy is expected across the entire team. Late-arriving user experience “findings” that could conflict with internal strategy will be treated as threatening, not helpful.”

I think we’ve all seen this, which drives to the real point. UX must be part of the strategy. If it’s treated on an equal footing with “requirements” which are functional, it would not be ignored, so therefore it would not be optional or threatening.

You had mentioned in one of your responses a reference to the Total Quality Management movement in the early 90’s, which I remember also. Part of the tenets of continuous improvement was to look for mistakes and reward for it. They often pointed to Japanese car makers and the Demming principles that actually celebrated mistakes and defects. Institutionalizing this across processes brought Japan out of the lowest quality of product, to eventually compete on the world stage as arguably the highest mark of quality over a couple of decades.

I guess what I’m saying is until that kind of upper management buy-in about quality comes back into favor and those goals become part of a strategy, UX will remain in a “nice to have” but not critical place. If we look at a customer-favored product like the iPhone, it’s very clear that user experience was a core strategy for the product. It could not have hoped for success under the Apple brand without the disciplined philosophy of UX that Apple demands. Failure to get the user experience nailed, would have sunk the product.

So to be on equal footing or integrated with requirements, UX must be present much further upstream at the concept stage of any project—and must be written into the strategy brief along with everything else strategic to success criteria.

You’ve actually framed this up by saying: “Because we are closest to the end user throughout the entire product development lifecycle, UX plays a vital early warning role for product requirements and adoption issues. But since that is not an explicit role, we can only serve that function implicitly, through credibility, influence and well-timed communications.”

I would suggest that along with the early warning of failure, that UX has to be in an explicit role. The implicit role feels familiar and is very prevalent out there, however it feels like a victim role. It’s true that through communications, credibility and influence we remain productive, but for success we have to be at the table with executive sanction from the top of the house. I also agree with Masood, that THE most powerful tool we possess—to cross all of these organizational barriers, is the ability to prototype and show a vision of end state. Thanks again for the great article Peter!