I recently read The Inmates Are Running the Asylum, a book by Alan Cooper. The book describes some problems with the current designers and the design process. Cooper states that engineers and programmers do not think the same way as normal people do. In fact he even classifies them as a separate species, Homo-Logicus. Homo-Logicus tend to complicate things too much for the common Homo-sapiens. Therefore, you do not want a Homo-Logicus designing your user interface. The interface should be designed without regard to the code that will be used in the background. When designing, you should design for a persona. Decide on the persona in the beginning and keep it in mind the entire time. Cooper states that if anyone is willing to actually take the time to properly design an interface, then they can do quite well.
How many times have you changed your initial interface design after thinking about how hard it would be to code?
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I know that I have changed a design because I thought that it was going to be too hard. Just this semester, I spend a good deal of time adding to a program for a class so that the command line stuff would be as easy as possible to use, I was told I shouldn't do that by the professor. Fun.
ReplyDeleteAn inmate I am...or will be one day, maybe. I thin the book is trying to sell designers just a bit too much to managers and others. Regardless, the book had some good ideas.
ReplyDeleteSucks about your design, Brad. Hope you got more than a learning experience out of it.
ReplyDeleteVery succinct and valid summary, John. Kudos.