I’m currently through my second and final week of the Design Experience module – where we get into groups and use all the HCI skills we’ve learnt to good use. Our job this year is to come up with a navigational device for tourists. Our group has decided to focus on museums, and we’ve gone through user observation, interviews, personas, paper prototyping, etc. – and even though we’ve we still have debates over whether we’re doing the right thing, sometimes.
Is this the experience of design?
I sometimes think about what’s essential past the logical reasoning for the way we design interfaces. One thing we don’t get very much in a HCI course like UCLIC’s is studio work. Unlike many design schools that function like apprenticeship workshops, we only get hands-on work during project days – hardly a chance to overcome our shyness of doing fieldwork and working with real users.
Last weekend, when I was interviewing some tourists at the British Museum, I found it really hard to come up with the right questions and help people feel at ease. I got better with each try, but it wasn’t easy. I learnt a bit of how fieldwork is done from books like “Tricks of the Trade” by Howard S. Becker, and from papers on design ethnography – hardly a core part of conventional HCI courses.
I also observed that our groups tended to talk more than sketch, prototype, wireframe, or interview. We have lengthy discussions about definitions, the usefulness and appropriateness of methods, whether certain methods were applied properly, or whether they should be used at all. Our modules constantly focus on the value of ‘reflection’, and I’m now wondering if there’s such a thing as ‘over-reflection’ vs. just-get-the-damn-thing-done… just my way of saying talk after doing rather than before.
It’s hard to learn everything in a year, but I’m getting the feeling that all this learning is preparation for even more learning – of the hands-on kind.
Already, I’m applying this as a programmer with a small startup company I’m doing some part-time work for. We hold one-day sessions where we sit around a kitchen table and get stuff done. If we need to draw references from books or methods, we do it. Otherwise, whatever works gets applied. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but it needs to function first. We’re applying design as we produce our work, not before.
Side-rant:
Recently, there’s been some debate over what interaction design is (or isn’t). Does it really matter? Is this a concern because we’re trying to establish an industry, and that we need to formalize our reputation with our clients? Maybe we still call ourselves programmers, or graphic artists, or project managers – but we do a good job of it, because we understand more about the way things work the way others can’t. The terms, ‘usability’, ‘user experience’, ‘information architect’ and the like seem to be transitional. Who knows what businesses might call UX practitioners in 5 years time?
I do hope that in due time, more people are aware of practitioners who apply user-centered solutions for interactive systems. But it involves us going out, interacting with industry and users, and solving their problems – rather than poring over books and figures.
