[Sigia-l] User Test Cost - Does this sound reasonable?

[Pabini Gabriel-Petit]

Chris Chandler" wrote:

> I've been working in an
> environment where it's taken two hard years to get the development team
> to trust that anyone on the "creative" side knows anything about
> application development at all. (In fact, many "designers" and some IAs
> don't want to know anything about the technical details of an
> application.)

***Unless one is purely a visual designer, I don't think it is possible to
be effective working on a software development project unless one knows both
the development process and enough about the technical details to know
what's implementable and what's not. Otherwise, some developers will take
advantage of your ignorance and tell you things are "impossible" when
they're not; others simply will not respect you. Designers who lack these
qualifications make garnering the respect of our peers on the development
side more difficult for all user-experience designers.

> I'd be more interested in how you would suggest someone go about making
> this dramatic change you advocate for in an enterprise environment? From
> my experience, it's a long hard process to develop trust and good
> working relationships [with developers].

***I suggest they get assigned to a project led by an engineer with a
reputation for being both "brilliant" and "difficult" and win his respect
first. That means standing up strongly for your point of view, but
developing a give-and-take relationship. Once you achieve that, it makes
getting the respect of the others much easier. If one is well qualified, the
process of gaining respect shouldn't take more than a few months, unless the
group's political dynamics and process are working against you.

Pabini
________________________________________

Pabini Gabriel-Petit
Principal & User Experience Architect
Spirit Softworks
www.spiritsoftworks.com