[Sigia-l] Designers and Developers

[Bob Doyle]

Hi Ziya,

Another very informed and informative post.

I agree very much with your Designer/Developer divide, and added some of 
your thoughts to our CMS glossary item 
http://www.cmswiki.com/tiki-index.php?page=Developer

Thanks.

Listera wrote:

>John Fullerton:
>  
>
>>>why Developers shouldn't be in the design business
>>>      
>>>
>>I'd like to hear more.
>>    
>>
>
>After nearly two decades of designing *and* developing every imaginable kind
>of app from standalone to interactive to client/server to web with a price
>tag from four to seven digits, in small and large settings, I've come to
>this simple conclusion: "design by committee" sucks.
>
>For evidence, one need not go any further than a cursory survey of
>user-facing open source apps. Strong leadership is a sine qua non of good
>design.
>
>But who will lead? Today, it's the developers. The vast majority of
>apps/sites out there are driven by developers. Why? Because they can. They
>can because project owners/managers believe developers are vital to
>development and deployment in a way designers are not.
>
>Common procedure is for developers to select a product/platform/language/IDE
>long before design is even considered. Even today, design is something you
>"skin" over and, as such, is often skin deep. Architecture, navigation,
>interaction, branding and other aspects of user experience are usually for
>version 2.0, *after* they are shown to be issues. Oddly, I get paid to solve
>these problems, but my goal is to avoid the post-deployment surgery as a
>business practice. Hence, my crusade.
>
>So how do we get there?
>
>1.  Designers have to know much more about the technical ramifications of
>their design choices.
>
>Why? Because if they don't, they will continue to be dictated by developers.
>Too much to ask of designers? Not at all.
>
>We've seen this happen with print design. About a decade ago, most
>designers, art directors, illustrators or typographers couldn't tell a mouse
>from a rodent. Today, that's clearly no longer the case. Just a few years
>ago many designers took pride in not knowing anything about technical
>aspects of their profession even when designing for online products. Today,
>I don't think you can get a decent web designer job without knowing HTML
>and/or XML, ASP, etc. I expect this trend to slowly expand into middleware
>as well. There's, after all, no point in designing stuff that's not
>efficient, scalable, maintainable, etc.
>
>2.  Prototyping tools have to become dramatically better.
>
>>From business analysts to interaction specialists, the Design team has to
>acquire a way of seeing the impact of their design choices as functional
>models, without writing code or waiting for weeks for developers to build
>them. Pipe dream? Not really. Curiously, I'm beta testing one app this week
>that can pretty much compose a fairly complex web services-based RIA without
>writing any code and deploy it as Flash. More needs to be done here
>obviously, but the historical trend is clear to me: designers need better
>tools/methods to express themselves and their intentions, way better than
>the wireframe nonsense.
>
>3.  Developers have to become implementors.
>
>Writing efficient/scalable/maintainable code is a very difficult job
>already. The incentive for managers shouldn't be to push developers to
>tackle non-engineering aspects of a project, but to hire designers to
>conceive and design the app so that developers can concentrate on
>implementing it as efficiently as possible. We don't want our buildings to
>be "designed" by general contractors why should we want our apps to be
>"designed" by developers.
>
>There's also another trend afoot here: rapid commoditization of the
>procedural aspects of programming which requires an increasingly more
>demarcated separation of design from development as the latter moves
>offshore. From fashion industry to consumer electronics that has been the
>pattern. This, incidentally, is what makes designer-driven prototyping so
>crucial for the future.
>
>4.  Designers have to become leaders.
>
>Above all, this is the key. Designers (with a capital "D") have to assume a
>leadership position in digital app creation so they can seamlessly
>interweave all IA/ID/UI/UX issues into a coherent whole. This should be
>become the Designer's domain and Designer's alone. When a company needs an
>app they should think of consulting the Designer first, not the Developer.
>The Designer, not the Developer, should own and drive the app
>conceptualization, architecture, design, usability process. They should do
>this for the integrity of the app and the benefit of the user. If there's a
>turf to fight for, this is it.
>
>So my dream is to see the Design and Development sides to consolidate into
>two distinct entities bridged by the functional prototype. The bonus of the
>prototype is that it's also the most effective point of entry/connection for
>the rest of the stakeholders. This arrangement greatly reduces ambiguity and
>risks and restores the natural order of app creation where Designers (in
>fact as surrogates for the users) drive the process.
>
>----
>Ziya
>
>Architecture is politics.
>
>
>
>
>------------
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