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The assumption that too many people are making is that design is just that last thing to be welded on in the assembly line. Design isn’t just a product, it’s al

by mcritz 16y ago

The assumption that too many people are making is that design is just that last thing to be welded on in the assembly line. Design isn’t just a product, it’s also a process.

raganwald 16y ago
It does not surprise me in the least that the people who produced the Skype 5 "design" also treat design as something to be welded on at the end of the assembly line. Design isn’t just a product, it’s also a process. Thank you for articulating in nine words what took me eight paragraphs to fumble around.
- ThomPete 16y ago
  I happen to know the guys who designed Skype for Mac. And by no metrics did they simply weld it on at the end. There are many many many factors involved in why Skype looks like it do and works like it does, but treating the design as something to be welded on at the end ain't one of them nor is not having a process.
  - raganwald 16y ago
    I'm delighted to hear that. It is restores my faith in our profession to know that there is a process in place and that the final result reflects the forces and contraints in place. +1!
    - ThomPete 16y ago
      They guys that did Skype was 8020studio.com probably on of the best design agencies in the world if you ask me.
      - raganwald 16y ago
        And I hope this actually reinforces the point I made. If it looks to me like this did not take place, it is because I obviously don't understand the forces and constraints upon the solution. Perhaps I don't fully understand the problem they are trying to solve. If they did an excellent job, then they knew something that is not obvious from looking at the design competition, which is why I suggest that being involved in the full process is so important.
        ThomPete 16y ago
        Well let me give you a pointer on what and for who they are solving problems. I think the numbers are something along the lines of this: 90% of users on Skype don't have much more than 5 contacts in their contact list. 95% of all messages are. "Can I call you?"
        gridspy 16y ago
        Now THAT is an enlightening comment. Another great example of Power User (us) vs 'The General Public'
        michaelbuckbee 16y ago
        That's really interesting and speaks to some of the issues with having a "Screenshot" redesign contest. If 95% of all messages are "Can I call you?" it seems like Skype should change around the default behavior for starting and acknowledging an incoming call. The ability for someone else to interact with my computer and make it suddenly start making noise "ringing" is a skeumorphism from when there weren't any other modes of communication available. I will say that one thing the new Skype does that I'm sure benefits many users is the fact that the new Skype no longer loses windows (the video, the chat, contacts) behind other application. This is something that is addressed (maybe brutally) by the new version, but I think is still an improvement for the vast majority of users.
        lkozma 16y ago
        "95% of all messages are. "Can I call you?" It's hard to separate cause and effect though, 95% of my messages are "Can I call you?", sometimes repeated 3-4 times, simply because the system often fails to reliably transmit anything longer without messages being lost, arriving out of order, etc. It is clearly hard to observe the users scientifically when the interface affects their behaviour.
        ThomPete 16y ago
        Sure but even if it was only 70% or 80% it would still be important.
  - mcritz 16y ago
    If Skype felt strongly in the design process they wouldn’t be asking for design consultation after the fact, right?
    - ThomPete 16y ago
      If you know how many big organizations work, you would know that it doesn't matter.
      - mcritz 16y ago
        A clever point to make. Especially since it could mean two things.
tptacek 16y ago
But "not a product, also a process" is also a tactic used by some designers to justify rustproofing, like long up-front wireframing sessions or market studies. It's the customer's decision how much process they want, not the designer's. I think probably every professional service field has this problem; there's a core transactional gig that most clients want and there's a series of services that consultants want to upsell alongside that gig. We have it in security, I know it exists in legal, it probably exists in accounting, too.
- raganwald 16y ago
  Design is a process. It is not the customer's decision how much process they want, rather it is the customer's decision how much process they want to do themselves and how much they want to do in conjunction with a designer. Likewise the designer gets to choose how much of the process they wish to be involved in. If the customer wants to do almost all of the work and simply bring in a designer to apply chrome, some designers do that, others demur and spend their time with customers who wish to collaborate on the full design life cycle. It's a wonderful world full of choices to be made. So yes, we agree that it's ok for some customers not to employ designers to consult with them, and I hope we agree it's ok for some designers to pass on said customers.
  - tptacek 16y ago
    Yup. The obvious subtext here is, I think the business value of the total design package is not that much better than the business value of transaction one-off design gigs.

by mcritz 16y ago

The assumption that too many people are making is that design is just that last thing to be welded on in the assembly line. Design isn’t just a product, it’s also a process.

raganwald 16y ago

It does not surprise me in the least that the people who produced the Skype 5 "design" also treat design as something to be welded on at the end of the assembly line. Design isn’t just a product, it’s also a process. Thank you for articulating in nine words what took me eight paragraphs to fumble around.

ThomPete 16y ago
I happen to know the guys who designed Skype for Mac. And by no metrics did they simply weld it on at the end. There are many many many factors involved in why Skype looks like it do and works like it does, but treating the design as something to be welded on at the end ain't one of them nor is not having a process.
- raganwald 16y ago
  I'm delighted to hear that. It is restores my faith in our profession to know that there is a process in place and that the final result reflects the forces and contraints in place. +1!
  - ThomPete 16y ago
    They guys that did Skype was 8020studio.com probably on of the best design agencies in the world if you ask me.
    - raganwald 16y ago
      And I hope this actually reinforces the point I made. If it looks to me like this did not take place, it is because I obviously don't understand the forces and constraints upon the solution. Perhaps I don't fully understand the problem they are trying to solve. If they did an excellent job, then they knew something that is not obvious from looking at the design competition, which is why I suggest that being involved in the full process is so important.
      - ThomPete 16y ago
        Well let me give you a pointer on what and for who they are solving problems. I think the numbers are something along the lines of this: 90% of users on Skype don't have much more than 5 contacts in their contact list. 95% of all messages are. "Can I call you?"
        gridspy 16y ago
        Now THAT is an enlightening comment. Another great example of Power User (us) vs 'The General Public'
        michaelbuckbee 16y ago
        That's really interesting and speaks to some of the issues with having a "Screenshot" redesign contest. If 95% of all messages are "Can I call you?" it seems like Skype should change around the default behavior for starting and acknowledging an incoming call. The ability for someone else to interact with my computer and make it suddenly start making noise "ringing" is a skeumorphism from when there weren't any other modes of communication available. I will say that one thing the new Skype does that I'm sure benefits many users is the fact that the new Skype no longer loses windows (the video, the chat, contacts) behind other application. This is something that is addressed (maybe brutally) by the new version, but I think is still an improvement for the vast majority of users.
        lkozma 16y ago
        "95% of all messages are. "Can I call you?" It's hard to separate cause and effect though, 95% of my messages are "Can I call you?", sometimes repeated 3-4 times, simply because the system often fails to reliably transmit anything longer without messages being lost, arriving out of order, etc. It is clearly hard to observe the users scientifically when the interface affects their behaviour.
        ThomPete 16y ago
        Sure but even if it was only 70% or 80% it would still be important.
- mcritz 16y ago
  If Skype felt strongly in the design process they wouldn’t be asking for design consultation after the fact, right?
  - ThomPete 16y ago
    If you know how many big organizations work, you would know that it doesn't matter.
    - mcritz 16y ago
      A clever point to make. Especially since it could mean two things.

tptacek 16y ago

But "not a product, also a process" is also a tactic used by some designers to justify rustproofing, like long up-front wireframing sessions or market studies. It's the customer's decision how much process they want, not the designer's. I think probably every professional service field has this problem; there's a core transactional gig that most clients want and there's a series of services that consultants want to upsell alongside that gig. We have it in security, I know it exists in legal, it probably exists in accounting, too.

raganwald 16y ago
Design is a process. It is not the customer's decision how much process they want, rather it is the customer's decision how much process they want to do themselves and how much they want to do in conjunction with a designer. Likewise the designer gets to choose how much of the process they wish to be involved in. If the customer wants to do almost all of the work and simply bring in a designer to apply chrome, some designers do that, others demur and spend their time with customers who wish to collaborate on the full design life cycle. It's a wonderful world full of choices to be made. So yes, we agree that it's ok for some customers not to employ designers to consult with them, and I hope we agree it's ok for some designers to pass on said customers.
- tptacek 16y ago
  Yup. The obvious subtext here is, I think the business value of the total design package is not that much better than the business value of transaction one-off design gigs.