[Sigia-l] clash of the viewpoints

[George Olsen]

David Heller said:
> The real question is, does ED say anything more valuable than the
> previous frameworks? Or is it just a language that enables graphic
> designers to feel welcome into the world of UCD. I see nothing all that
> different in the rhetoric of ED than what has previously been said by
> UCD practioners except perhaps more focus on the end view by the user.

Actually, I'd say the main difference is that ED pays attention to
"richness of experience" (i.e. sensory immersion) which HCI and UCD often
have a blind spot to. To me, it presents a more balanced viewpoint among:

Functionality
- doing
- traditionally thought of as "users"
- i.e. what can I accomplish?
- traditionally focused on by HCI

Content
- knowing
- traditionally thought of as "readers"
- i.e. what do I know that I didn't before
- often the focus of IA and information design

Presentation
- feeling (both as an end goal and also about the process of getting there)
- traditionally thought of as "audiences"
- "I laughed, I cried, it was better than 'Cats'..." and "It was a
pleasure doing business with you"
- the traditional focus of the arts, also lots of "interactive designers,"
like Hillman Curtis are focused around this

Unlike the first two, which are more end-goal oriented, the presentation
also affects how you feel about the process. For example, you can have two
customer transactions that provide the same information and let you
accomplish the same thing, but a rude sales clerk makes all the
difference.

This ain't just theorizing. The WSJ just had an article on automated call
center systems and they've discovered that finding the right voice is
critically important-imagine your bank's call system asking you: "Like
what's you're PIN, dude." It's also why companies spend millions on
branding.

Unfortunately, often HCI's had an indifferent to hostile view of this
aspect of experience. UCD is more receptive, but still has a bit of a
blind spot to it -- for example, much as I respect JJG's "Elements of User
Experience" diagram, it pretty much ignores this. (There's the "web as
software" and "web as hypertext" but not "web as interactive multimedia"
dimension.)

I think this blind spot is largely because the practitioners tend to come
from functionality- or content-oriented backgrounds. Witness Gerry
McGovern's absurd pronouncement that design is unimportant. Companies that
spend millions on branding would beg to differ...

But to me, it's not really important what you call it, as long as you
recognize which are the right tools for the job in a given context.

The debate we're seeing is because we're in a convergent field, yet too
many people want to take their one particular dimension and insist it's
The One True Way to do things.