[Sigia-l] Computer scientists and engineers thinking about user acceptance and social adoption?

[Adrian Howard]

On 17 Jul 2007, at 01:57, Ziya Oz wrote:

[snip]
> Is it necessary or, more significantly cost-effective, for, say, a  
> compiler
> expert at Apple "to think about user acceptance and social  
> adoption" of the
> application they help create? How about the comp-sci folks who  
> created Core
> Data upon which many consumer-grade apps such as Aperture is based?
>
> It might be said that it couldn't possibly hurt to know more about UX
> aspects. Perhaps. But at what cost?
[snip]

Personally I've never encountered a project where things got worse  
after we spread more knowledge about UX aspect around. Even with the  
lowest level of techie work it helped develop a more "service my  
users" attitude over a "meet the spec" one.

> Isn't the value of the designer a refactoring of that equation?  
> What exactly
> is the cost of distributing the knowledge, wisdom and experience of  
> the
> designer to any and all members of the creative chain? Is that
> cost-effective and/or feasible?

Seems that way to me :-)

> If you were to look at design as conceptualization and development as
> implementation, the need for the latter to have UX competency is  
> nearly
> dissipated.

I don't find that a sensible separation myself. The idea that the  
"software" design and the "product" design are distinct is a false  
one in my experience. They feed of each other. Getting the developers  
to understand the "whys" of the product design lead to a better  
software design.

Cheers,

ADrian