Chapter 14. Power and Pleasure


For you to realize the full measure of benefit from using interaction design in your business, it has to be baked into the software-development process as an integral part. It cannot be tacked on afterwards, added as an afterthought.

In the last chapter, I wrote that design needs to be written down before the coding begins. However, in the steaming cauldron of product development, the programmers can still simply ignore the design document, regardless of its quality. This is quite likely in the passive-aggressive culture of software engineering, in which the developer treats any design input as advice, to be complied with when possible and as workload permits.

It must be made emphatically clear to everyone on the project that the design is a blueprint that must be followed and is not merely a suggestion. Unless the commitment to design is demonstrated vigorously and publicly, the developers will assume that they alone have the real responsibility for creating a successful product.

There is only one way to communicate this effectively. The company's top management must state unequivocally to all other managers of both design and development that programmers are off the hook. They must make plain that the design team is now responsible for product quality and that the designers have the authority to make the call, subject of course to management oversight.

The programmers are welcome to improvise below the surface of the program, but every aspect of the defined user interaction must be assumed to be firm. This is not to say that it cannot be questioned, but it cannot be unilaterally ignored or changed. It cannot be treated as advice that can be selected from or edited.

The design team must have responsibility for everything that comes in contact with the user. This includes all hardware as well as all software. Collateral software such as install programs and supporting products must be considered, too.

This is probably the most radical requirement of successful design and the one that will demand the most cultural adaptation. Later in the chapter, I will discuss the cultural-change issue in more depth. Right now, let's look at an example of a company that smoothly integrated design into its process.



Inmates Are Running the Asylum, The. Why High-Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity
The Inmates Are Running the Asylum Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy &How to Restore the Sanity - 2004 publication
ISBN: B0036HJY9M
EAN: N/A
Year: 2003
Pages: 170

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