[Sigia-l] clash of the viewpoints

[George Olsen]

On 12/31/02 11:22 AM, "christina wodtke" <cwodtke at eleganthack.com> wrote:
> This makes quite a bit of sense to me, but again, how is it different from
> Design?

Well, I think we're back at one of those "convergent field" issues.... As
_you've_ defined big D design, there's probably not that much difference.

However, to my knowledge most of the people promoting ED tended to come from
a graphic design background -- and in that field when you talk about
"design" it's presumed you're talking about graphic design. (Or at the
widest: graphics, products and environments -- the sort of thing I.D.
Magazine <http://www.idonline.com/> covers.)

So "experience design" was a useful way to make clear that they were talking
about something different and broader.

The other likely factor was that graphic designers tend to get slapped
around -- including here -- when they talk about Design being applied to
wider world in the way you've described.

(BTW, I don't know that any of this was a conscious decision on anyone's
part, I think it was at the level of unconscious influences.)

I think this goes back to another common problem we keep seeming to have --
confusing the job title or name of a field with the _act_ of doing whatever.

People have been doing information architecture long before RSW or Lou put a
name to it. In this broad sense, in writing we called it "structuring." Most
graphic designers would've probably called it "information design," which is
probably why Nathan's got his undies in a twist.

But Nathan's protestations not withstanding, within graphic design, the
subfield of "information design" _is_ widely considered to be focused on
maps, charts and diagrams. (Why? Probably because those are the most
tangible differences, since the larger big D design skills are shared with
the other graphic design professions.) I know, I used to be an ID in a
former career.

Of course, the problem comes when you start talking to people in other
fields, who aren't sharing the same definitions. We went through this a
decade ago in the CD-ROM days with the title of "producer" (which
incidentally, never did get resolved.)  Back in the old days, I know someone
who thought about literally writing a translation dictionary between the
worlds of New York, Hollywood and Silicon Valley.

>> 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
> 
> This is a mistaken way to view content-- think of a novel. it's not always
> knowing as much as replicating an experience in words--- a good novel is
> successful experience design... but do we need a word for it?

Yeah, you're right. I did ignore fiction since professionally few of us deal
with it. In an earlier versions I did refer to "content" as "facts (and
fiction)" but found it confused people.

But needless to say it's important and operates by much different rules,
although I think the distinction between content and presentation still
holds -- as Scott McCloud elaborated on.

Interestingly though, the emotional "rules" of fiction become fairly useful
when dealing with style-driven products, where user-centered design
techniques tend to fail.

> feeling that HCI has somehow forgotten the nature of the "H", it reminds us
> humans have experiences...

Interestingly, I just got the latest issue of UPA's magazine, which had an
excellent article, "What's Love Got to Do With It?", which took on this very
point.

I thought the author's made two asute observations.

1) User-centered design too often means usability-centered design, i.e.
framing everything in terms of efficiency and ease of use, wanting to make
every restaurant into McDonald's.

2) Usability is rapidly becoming an "expected to have" -- that's to say,
it's like the tires on your car, people notice when there are problems, but
you don't get any points for doing it right. Instead we need to take the
next step and focus on making products pleasurable and satisfying.