[IxDA Discuss] Alan Cooper on Software Design: Code=Design?

[Nasir Barday]

Most people in software don't know what User Experience Design truly is, let
alone Interaction Design. Heck, my friend's boss is *just* starting to
accept that she's a "User Experience Designer" and not "The Usability
Person" (that happened, um, today-- we're celebrating with cake ...).

We've talked about this on the list before, but as a community we need to
recognize just how many people don't understand that good design starts with
being good anthropologists, etc, etc. Once we come to grips with that
(actually, I think lots of list readers come to grips with that 40 hours a
week...), we've got to do for our processes what we do best: design them!
Every company behaves differently (just like different personas), so while
the idea is the same, we have to tailor our processes for the people we work
with if we want good design to catch on at our clients/companies, e.g.
sometimes paper prototyping just won't work some places. We need to talk
with people outside of just each other-- Joel Spolksy, one of the original
Software Engineering bloggers; Product Developers at Maytag and Caterpillar;
any conference without "Usability," "Design," or "Information Architecture"
in its title :-).

Sure, the article has its problems, but it introduces at least the concept
of IxD to software people. Anyway, just furthering the point that our work
is not nearly as widespread as we might like to believe. We still have a
ways to go before being an IxD immediately gets you numbers at the bar, let
alone booking a paying gig without having to convince people they need you.

Sorry, Chris, lost your original question with the soapboxing. Maybe we can
continue this when Part 2 hits ...

- Nasir