Boxes and Arrows: Comments by David Royer

David Royer — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 20:32:52 GMT

Interesting post, I am looking forward to the second part.

I think one of those less tangible qualities that is very important is a designers ability to reflect. Reflective designers are always improving and learning from previous projects and experiences. I think this is as valuable as any skill listed in this article.

David Royer — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 17:23:37 GMT

Very nice article. It is funny how personas are becoming a hot topic all of a sudden.

I agree with most things said on this board, but I think one important use of personas was left out. Design education, both formal and informal.

Johnathon said: “As the designer, you just need to know your users and design accordingly. Not a very complicated idea.”

Maybe it is not a complicated idea, but it can be a difficult idea in practice. As an assistant instructor for an interaction design class I observed the tech-lust of many new interaction designers. Using personas (correctly) forces new designers to approach the design problems in a very human-centered way. This human-centered way of approaching problems becomes part of this designers tacit knowledge and changes the way designers work, even when they are not using personas.

David Royer — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 10:04:13 GMT

I think we can all agree (author included) that dealing directly with the users is better, but I see situations (no budget/time + hard to access users ) where this technique can be valuable.

Cennydd makes an important point in saying: “By talking to the people who talk to users, we introduce another layer of bias (political, cognitive, whatever) and thus could end up a bit further from facts than if we’d gathered them ourselves.”

I think the key to using this method, or others like it, is to always remember that their is that extra layer of bias, and attempt to take it in to account when working with the information. Designers should think about how the information gathered might be biased and draw design insights accordingly. It is when designers pretend that the information they gain from these once-removed research methods is ‘pure’ that they run in to problems and get blindsided.