[Sigia-l] various definitions of 'information'

[George Olsen]

christina wodtke said:
> Still, experience design as it is currently defined in the ED community,
> in my opinion, is simply Design with an unnecessary appendage

I suppose it depends who you talk to. Nathan doesn't speak for all of the
ED community. Trying to find the right scope was a big debate at one of
the previous AIGA-ED summits.

<philosphical digrssion=on>

To me "experience design" is pretty broad, but with a subtle but different
shift in emphasis away from self-expression and consciously focusing
creating an experience in a given context for a given audience.

To me, it's also got overtones of interactivity, that's absent in
traditional Design. Films are immersive, but not terribly interactive --
and back when I was involved with interactive fiction in the early 1990s,
the worse people at it were the scriptwriters, precisely because they
couldn't give up control. So I guess ED to me also has a sense of creating
environments in which experiences can occur, rather than just designing
the experience itself.

Which is why I preferred "user experience design" for the group that
AIGA-ED presents. It was significant that the people who showed up all
generally worked in the "digital realm" even though industrial designers,
theme park designers, etc. had been invited.

As you said, in part I think it's a bit like the Reformation, where new
names are given in part to refocus on the old concepts.

</philosphical digrssion>

> User experience design places it in the realm of the digital, since we
> call our customers users-- then it includes not only IA, ID, ID, GD but
> also customer service, package delivery, etc... and thus again is
> tightly enough defined that a new word actually adds context and thus
> value as a
> term...maybe...

Not to split hairs further, but I'd actually say UX (focusing just on the
digital) is a subset, the larger customer experience, which in turn is
part of the overall brand experience.

Admittedly, the difference between UX and customer experience is
debatable. Certainly many of the concepts transfer (both ways I might
add). My distinction is more one of practicality. Few people in our field
have extensive experience in running call-centers, shipping logistics,
etc. so I'm loath to overextend ourselves.

That said, certainly skills we bring (IA, ID, ID, GD, etc.) can be applied
to wider fields like improving call center experiences, or improving
retail design.

I think there's a good analogy between the subfields within UX/ED and the
specialities within graphic design. Both type design and corporate
identity design are considered specialties with "graphic design" and the
practitioners are very different. But design students are expected to be
exposed to both (as well as several other specialties). Likewise trained
graphic designers typically only are expert in a few specialties, but
they're expected to basic knowledge and skills in the others.

And like the subfields within UX/ED skills are often shared among
specialities and often one speciality requires intermediate-level
knowledge of another -- for example, a good publication designer is
usually quite knowlegable about typography (even if he or she can't design
type from scratch).

Which makes it pointless to try to wall off skills into being "just" IA,
ID, ID, GD, etc.

It's really more like a centers of gravity -- some things are tightly
bound to one field (i.e. thesauri and IA), while others share a mutual
orbit among two or more fields.