[Sigia-l] Don't go chasing waterfalls?

[Donna Maurer]

My post didn't come through properly - so here it is again, all out of sequence ;)

-------

My projects tend to be iterative within a linear process.
 
So we have a basic linearity of start the project, design stuff, 
finish the project. And there are some linear steps in there. Do 
some research before design. Design something before evaluating 
it.

But otherwise it is iterative and silly to pretend it isn't. The 
more you work through a project, the more you learn, the more 
feedback you get, the more you change ideas and designs.

This is why I'm not in favour of consultant-based design. In 
doing consultancy work you are expected to outline what you'll do 
and when you'll do it and how much it will cost. Then you have to 
follow the plan.  This, to me, is completely ridiculous as I know 
that I would be learning stuff that would change the damn plan.

And that's why I left consulting...
> 
> Donna

On 30 Jan 2006 at 22:53, andrew at friendlymanual.com wrote:

> Hi Folks,
> 
> I'm trying to figure out if real-world IA is more linear or iterative, and would
> be grateful for your thoughts. It is linear in the sense that we are - we are
> born, we die, and there is some stuff in between. That is, we start working on
> a project/site/design, we finish working on a project/site/design, and we do
> some stuff in between (granted this may be more an outie than an innie thing).
> 
> I've read "waterfall development" models of IA (we gather, we analyse, we
> design, we deliver the design) and they don't seem to reflect any kind of
> real-world project that I've been involved with. It seems to be more
> iterative/non-linear - the requirements change so the goalposts move, other
> projects intrude, the IA team spends time fronting/evangelising the project to
> stakeholders, the stakeholders love the interaction so they lobby to change the
> requirements, the design changes to accomodate, the technical specialists say
> that the project can't deliver what the design promises, the design changes.
> Real life is linear, perhaps real-life IA isn't? In a perfect vacuum the design
> requirements would never change. Hmm.
> 
> Cheers, Andrew
>
-- 
Donna Maurer
Maadmob Interaction Design

e: donna at maadmob.net
work: 	http://maadmob.com.au/
blog: 	http://maadmob.net/donna/blog/
AOL IM: maadmob