[IxDA Discuss] design by committee??

[Dave Cronin]

> Wilson, Russell said:
> 
> Communicate, facilitate, elaborate, collaborate... (can you 
> feel the time slipping by?)

Yup. You have to plan for it. And I agree, schedule often limits the
amount of time available for collaboration. We often timebox the amount
of time we spend on this (though are typically quite generous: about 1
day/week).

But getting quickly to a solution that isn't viable (for political,
technical or usability reasons) doesn't serve anyone. Plus I'm more
worried about making clients, customers and users happy than winning
awards. It usually takes a team's worth of knowledge and insight to
achieve that.

When you're working in a complex domain (e.g. medical or financial), it
is very difficult for a designer to know all the details about the usage
context, and collaboration is a good way to get help filling in the
specifics.
 
> But, I do believe that ultimately one person needs to have 
> authority over design for conceptual integrity, along with 
> the standard checks and balances (so that your new enterprise 
> portal is not based on the infamous hotdog stand color scheme)

Not to get overly philosophical, but the way I see it, there are 3 kinds
of authority in the world: by force (either physical or by threat of
action like firing); by fiat (programmers often have authority by fiat
because the have to build it); or by moral authority (people want to do
what you're suggesting because you've convinced them that it's right).

My experience is that this last one is ideal for making product design
and defintion decisions. Even Steve Jobs, who is a bit notorious for the
first type, also has the last type in spades.

My $.02,

-dave