Hi Parag,
My experience is that any organisation concerned with profit, pray to
the love of god that you as a designer or usability consultant (in my
case) approach interfaces at least on the webb with users concerns and
goals in mind.
Although, that doesn't mean that one need to involve the user in the
design process. Some practitioners are more talented than others and
know right off the bat what will work and what won't. When user
involvement really comes in handy (as we all know) is when the one
designing won't be the one using the product, which I guess is a fairly
reasent phenomenon from a toolmaking perspective.
User studies also comes in handy when convincing management of what you
are trying to achieve. Without numbers from the user which equates with
saving or gaining cash for the company, one has zero leverage and you
are out the meetingroom heads first.
At my latest job at a massive .com, I struggled to come across
(humorously) with the idea that a practitioner disqualifies himself by
involving the user in the design process. I did this as I found the
current evangelism surrounding user involvement in every teeny weeny
part of a site quite neauseating at times. User involvement is
expensive, time consuming, sometimes boring and leaves less room for us
designers / usability folks to flex our skills.
Using ones intuition is all the fun. Especially when it is proven right.
: )
Parag Deshpande wrote:
> Dear members of the list,
>
> While I know that knowing users ( i don't agree with the term though) and
> their needs are important for design, I always question if it is necessary
> that that design should always be user-centred?
>
> If not, then what does it mean for the design process?
>
> Any thoughts?
>
> parag deshpande
> PhD candidate,
> IDC, UL, Ireland
>
>
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