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

[Todd Warfel]

On Jan 31, 2006, at 2:20 AM, Donna Maurer wrote:


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.

Sounds pretty typical. We have a pretty good balance of clients and projects
that we do continual work for (iterative). Then we have a couple of projects
we do every year that are one-offs (linear). They call us in to fix
something another company screwed up, or they want a quick redesign. We do
the work and there's a hand-off.

However, even this is iterative. We create a set of artifacts that help the
client continue the work. We provide them with a pattern library w/detailed
behavior notes, personas, a wireframe deck that is more of a build guide
than just a series of screen shots, and a detailed style guide. All of these
are meant to help the client continue to iterate the design based on a
well-thought out plan. 

It's not flawless, technology does change. However, at least by having a
well laid-out plan, as technology, the site, the application evolves, they
have a set of artifacts that help them determine where things should go and
how they behave:

"...we have a new piece of functionality that didn't exist before. Where
should it go and how should it behave?" Looking through the patterns
library, they find that "Oh, it has these characteristics, these
requirements and fits into this pattern. That means it should behave like
this and live in this region of the screen." That works about 99% of the
time. And then sometimes we need to create an entirely new pattern, but most
of the work they can do themselves, successfully, based on what we've given
them.

[...] 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...

Guess it depends on your approach and clientele. We have had a couple of "We
must have a detailed plan. We must stick to the plan." But those are the
projects we try and avoid. We prefer someone who understands that sometimes
things need to change and we'll have to pad the plan a little bit to
compensate. In the past four years, we've only had one client that was a
problem w/. That's one of the reasons we spend time setting appropriate
expectations upfront. 

That's also why we don't do work for Microsoft. Heard too many horror
stories of the research team doing all this work, only to have the actual
development team throw the work in the trash. What's the point?


Cheers!

Todd R. Warfel
Partner, Design & Usability Specialist
Messagefirst | designing and usability consulting
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Email: todd at messagefirst.com
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In practice, they are not.