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Subject:Re: Interface Design - who does it? From:"Colleen Dancer (02) 333-1862" <DANCER -dot- COLLEEN -at- A2 -dot- ABC -dot- NET -dot- AU> Date:Tue, 10 Sep 1996 08:45:51 +1000
Ruth Glaser said among other things:
Because of the size of the system, I don't anticipate the interface
designer will design each interface, rather establish general
guidelines, consistencies, etc. and ensure they are followed.
<end quote>
Ruth I would recommend that the interface designer work with the team to
design all key screens and write guidelines for the rest. However they
(or a group of interface designers) will still need to review ALL screens
down to error messages. It is amazing how different people can create
different behaviours in screens even with good guidelines.
In my current role I designed with the team the key navigation and
conceptual models, the key screens and wrote the guidelines for the rest.
I then reviewed the paper and prototype for each screen. And finally
reviewed all screens at the end for a large checklist of things. I found
that our programmers, even though they have a good understanding of
usability issues, still code to make life easy or they are so involved in
the code they don't notice small but important things. On one screen I
just moved a few objects a few pixels and it made an enormous difference.
Just a word on who should be the interface designer, I agree with the
other comments: not a technical product architect!!!! It needs a user
focus with at least some understanding of cognitive issues.
Cheers
Colleen Dancer
dancer -dot- colleen -at- a2 -dot- abc -dot- net -dot- au
The opinions expressed are mine and mine alone.
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