Cognitive Friction

I’ve been ruminating on the Agenda I set for this reboot of Cognitive Friction, and my attention has settled on to the process issue I identified in that post. I’ve spent a great deal of time this past year creating and refining detailed design specifications for various clients and then struggling to get these products built in the way I intend by either a team of in-house software engineers or a third-party web development house. On reflection, it is the frustrations I’ve experienced in this process that has most induced me to blog again. So, I want to focus on two specific aspects of the development process:

1. The role of prototyping and design specifications and the wisdom of spending time on these design artifacts as opposed to just diving into the build process.
2. The role of design and designers in the development process and the relationship between designers and engineers

So what’s bugging me about these two specific issues? Well, I have been struggling to reconcile the approach to user experience deign advocated by two parties I greatly admire: The good folks over at 37 Signals and the equally bright people at Cooper Interaction Design.

Alan Cooper vs. 37 Signals

There are two opposed positions on the issues listed above that I can’t satisfactorily reconcile, and wish to explore further in subsequent posts. I’ll attempt a summary here by way of a preface to what will follow:

• The guys over at 37 Signals contend that anything more than a few design sketches is a waste of time. They prefer to start to build as soon as possible, because the sooner you can interact with something concrete, the better they say the end design will be.
• The people at Cooper Interaction Design hold that you need to design the whole thing in great detail up front before the build can begin. This entails lots of user research, requirements analysis and the creation of an exhaustive form and behaviour specification.

So which is it? The Agile Auteurs model from 37 Signals or the Product Engineers model from Cooper? It is this dichotomy that I most want to address in this blog and in my professional practice. I have a number of half-formed posts in draft on these issues, and I will try to get them out as soon as I can to start raking over this ground and see where it is I stand.

Technorati Tags: 37 Signals, Alan Cooper

So I’m back, first post in about a year. To be honest, I haven’t felt inspired to say anything about my profession in all of that time. Everyone gets burned out from time to time, I suppose. In any case, I had nothing to say that I didn’t see someone else say better and say first. Recently, though, my interest has become piqued by something and I need to work it out here. As Forster said, How do I know what I think until I see what I say? So let’s see where this goes, if anywhere, and I won’t make any promises this time.

What’s on my mind

Over the last year or so, I’ve been responsible at work for recruiting usability professionals. Some of them have been very experienced, some very raw recruits with only a vague notion of what their chosen profession involves.

As well as working out how best to recruit these folks, I have also been charged with developing a training programme. This is supposed to extend not just to the new people, but also to our existing staff. The idea is to collect all of the varied things my scarily-smart colleagues know and codify them, so we can all learn from each other. Our process is under examination too – what is the best and most efficient route to a good result for our clients? So that’s what’s on my mind. Is that a tall order, or what?

So what does all of this entail? Well, let’s see:

• Defining the desired personal characteristics of a good job candidate.
• Defining the desired skill set of both job candidates and seasoned professionals.
• Identifying and communicating the tools and techniques we should all have in our toolbox.
• Reconsidering the steps in the user centred design process and the deliverables at each stage.

Now I know this stuff is debated ad infinitum on lists like the IxDA every day of the week. No matter. I need to arrive at my own answer in my own way for my own circumstances. Everything I’ve read or heard on these matters must be pushed into the grinder so I can see what comes out the end. If any of my readers are still out there, then your comments will be most welcome along the way.

I don’t intend approaching this systematically, I’ll just follow my wandering attention and see where it leads me. I hope it’ll be somewhere interesting. So that’s the plan, although as I said, no promises.