[Sigia-l] Human-Centered Design 99% bad

[Stewart Dean]

>From: "Jonathan Baker-Bates" <Jonathan.Baker-Bates at oyster.com>
>To: "SIGIA-L" <sigia-l at asis.org>
>Subject: RE: [Sigia-l] Human-Centered Design 99% bad
>Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2005 13:56:36 +0100
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: sigia-l-bounces at asis.org
> > [mailto:sigia-l-bounces at asis.org] On Behalf Of Anne Miller
> > Sent: 03 August 2005 01:23
> > To: 'Listera'; 'SIGIA-L'
> > Subject: RE: [Sigia-l] Human-Centered Design 99% bad
> >
> > Z: No, no, no. These unintended consequences were *not*
> > inherently part of the design and, as you say, were not
> > intended by the designer. They just happened.
> >
> > A: Utter nonsense! Of course they're part of the design. Just
> > because the designer didn't *intend* these uses to be there
> > but a user/observer found them any way doesn't make these
> > uses any less part of the design - they may be opportunistic
> > or fortuitous but so what - such is good design. Design that
> > represents the only designer's *intent* belongs in an art gallery!
> >
>
>Wow. I thought I'd seen a pretty wide spectrum of opinion about IA/UX
>design issues on this list, but that's got to be the most extreme
>interpretation of "design" so far. Making no distinction between usage
>and design is rather brain-scrambling in my opinion.

I'm trying to make sense of this myself. I think what the discussion is 
breaking down into is 'top down' and 'bottom up solutions'.

When 'Z' says stuff 'just happens' then it sounds like the users are finding 
their own way to do what they want because the system designed doesnt quite 
work they way the want to.

Top down systems require the user to conform to set ways of doing things - 
much like many microsoft product do unintentionaly.

What I think is being hinted to is creating an environment where there are 
many tools to do a job and the user descides the way the want to do that job 
- using tools for tasks the original disigner could not forsee but had 
created it in an open enough way so it could be done.

The environment approach I would call bottom up as the activities are 
created by the users, not the application designers.

To use another anology bottom up is like letting a tree grow - whilst top 
down is almost like making it out of steel and concrete.  It differs 
slightly from how others think of top down and bottom up IA (which is closer 
to information science) in that his is related to function rather than 
content.

I'm a big believer in bottom up design but it can be it's very hard to 
impliment due to our nature to want to build things rather than grow things.

Stew Dean