[IxDA Discuss] Fwd: Thoughts on Alan Cooper's Keynote

[Anjali R Arora]

This does sound like a dream project: getting 4 months to research & design!

Within the agile discussion here, I did not read about how important it is that the build-in-progress be seen by all the team-members from the start. I am now in a situation where I find that what has been built in the past three months is a complete & random rehash of developer-designed screens ( a very large component) & my designs (small component). The primary philosophy appears to be: launch on time, & ready-to-use code dictates all else: use what you have, & all else will follow! At this late stage, I am finding that there is very little change one can make except for some cosmetic ones.

In doing a post-mortem, I am inclined to think all of the following may have contributed to this:

- Not being able to see the product-in-progress in time.

- Territory issues where developers have gotten used to completely owning the product, no matter that all previous products launched have been failures.

- The teams being too large & geographically dispersed. I now think that where the teams have to be large, 1-2 members from each should be owning the product, communicating frequently, & shepherding it through.

- I am also exploring how my design documents can be enriched to provide more detail, especially since folk were remote & there was no face-to-face.

-Anjali
www.artbrush.net



----- Original Message -----
From: Christopher Fahey <chris.fahey at behaviordesign.com>
Date: Tuesday, February 12, 2008 11:35 am
Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] Fwd: Thoughts on Alan Cooper's Keynote
To: discuss at ixda.org


> On Feb 12, 2008, at 11:04 AM, Cagwin, Virginia wrote:
>  > Like David mentioned, interaction design must come first. It's the  
> 
>  > only
>  > way I found a project to work successfully.
>  
>  
>  Interestingly, I am about to begin Phase 3 of a major project with  
>  the following phases, each of which slightly overlaps the others. For 
>  
>  context, the whole process is overseen by a small product management  
> 
>  team while the design and programming teams are largely specialized  
> 
>  consultant firms (including my team at Behavior).
>  
>  1) Strategy- and Design-Focused (4 months): Thoroughly design a  
>  version 1.0 prototype and test it with real users. No tech  
>  development. Just collect requirements and design something that  
>  meets a business strategy and delivers an awesome user experience.  
>  Identify the technological needs, but don't code anything.
>  
>  2) Engineering-Focused (4 months): Agile programming team develops  
>  the product using the prototype as a target, with occasional light  
>  input from the design team but mostly focusing on solving and  
>  innovating tech solutions. Expose the development product regularly  
> 
>  to a small user test base and collect feedback. Meanwhile, the design 
>  
>  team begins conceptualizing the version 2.0 product.
>  
>  3) Close Collaboration (4 months): Design team ramps up again, using  
> 
>  the lessons learned and opportunities identified during the tech  
>  progress, plus the prototype and product user testing feedback, to  
>  work alongside the tech team to finalize the UX and implement the fit 
>  
>  and finish of the product. Much triage is anticipated.
>  
>  It's a little more complex than this when you drill down a little bit 
>  
>  (there are design cycles that are heavily focused on branding and  
>  larger corporate integration issues and that have little to do with  
> 
>  the features and functionality), but this is the basic idea. Design  
> 
>  first, code it halfway, then collaborate closely down the home stretch.
>  
>  I'd love to hear what people think of this approach, especially if  
>  you've tried something like it. I'm pretty confident in it, at least  
> 
>  for now.
>  
>  Cheers,
>  -Cf
>  
>  Christopher Fahey
>  ____________________________
>  Behavior
>  biz: http://www.behaviordesign.com
>  me: http://www.graphpaper.com
>  
>  >
>  
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