[Sigia-l] "Who Really Turns Off JavaScript?"

[Listera]

Stewart Dean:

> I see my job as designing the user experience.

Setting up a UX scenario of, say, grabbing a live electrical wire while
standing in a bathtub full of water only betrays deadly confusion about what
works and what doesn't. Knowing something about electricity/conductivity/etc
won't hurt you.

> That's why you have a project manager to say...

Interesting. You won't let knowledge of technology affect your creativity
but gladly let a PM dictate the boundaries?

> with the right experience you know where the compromises are to be made.

If "right experience" does not contain knowing something about technology,
how do you know where to make the compromises?

The reality is that if you don't/can't anticipate the technical ramification
of your own design choices, technologists will certainly dictate them to
you.

> By trying to double guess...
> If you start off limited...
> as few will understand what it really does...
> And a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing.

To me, these signal a fear of technology, indeed an abdication of a
designer's obligation to understand the tight interplay between design and
technology, concept and implementation, strategy and tactics, etc.

Why should you "double guess" or feel "limited" or lack understanding or be
satisfied with "a little bit of knowledge" of how what you conceptualized
can or cannot be implemented?

Who will pay you to conjure up scenarios, for example, that cannot possibly
be implemented given the resources of your client?

Who will pay you to recommend, say, a great high-def user experience for
your teenage audience by "assuming" 1080p video streaming at several Mbps
over ordinary DSL? Or instant language translation without understanding the
current limitations we have? Or ensuring accessibility to certain disabled
audiences without knowing what can and cannot be done? Or designing a UX
dependent on real-time database lookups via Ajax without having some
understanding of scalability issues at the backend or browser
multithreading? Or "porting" apps to mobile devices without a firm grasp of
the severe technical limitations therein? And so on.

Indeed who will pay you to indulge in solution scenarios when you remain
oblivious to their implementation limitations?

Being aware of technology/implementation issues doesn't cripple your
conceptual creativity, it merely frees you of the burden of constant
uncertainty.

---- 
Ziya

Best Practices,
For when you've run out of your own ideas and context.