| | [ User Research Smoke & Mirrors ]
I read through this paper twice. The first time round with cynicism and the second, with a bit more empathy.
Finally, there is someone who agrees with me that a number of research methods such as the K-J technique and game-like elicitation methods look wonderful, but are actually quite meaningless and a waste of time. They only seem to add in more possibly irrelevant concerns and those who zealously employ these queer and elaborate methods eventually become self-destructing prophecies. I do wonder from time to time, why the need to go to so much trouble when we are dealing with designs ? After all, isnt it about the aesthetics, artistic value that designers are entitled to and renowed for ? Since when have research methods played a more important part in this arena ?
To put it simply, apart from a few basic low and high fidelity methodologies [such as cardsorting] conducted to ensure that a design is easy to naviagate through, simple to comprehend and understand, everything else should be up to the freedom of the designer. A design will lose its potency and meaning if it has to be tied down by the neverending list of researches that only seek to unwrap every single layer for inspection. I feel that lumping design and science together is just like a fusion of east and west. No matter what, there are bound to be differences and conflicts within the two that cannot be reconciled. The vigorous pursue of one will only end up in denouncing the other. Yet, it looks like in this age's obsession with scientific methods, design is destined to suffer at the expense of exaggerated and elaborated researches. What will happen to subjectivity, now that everything has to be inspected through objective means ?
Designers are caught up in this slow and tiring stuggle, and one does not have to look far to see the dilemna they face. In order to sell any product, designers will need to go through endless trials of testing to ensure that the eventual product would not be a futile waste of resources and money. As such, they are forced to either tweak their art and design into the mainframe provided by science or get flushed out without a chance to showcase their work. This great disharmony and unbalance between science and design is as such, but yet, we cannot rectify the situation by simply abolishing science.
I've personally experienced this after going through the numerous new media design modules and especially after this course's hell assignment and the final project. Research methods seem to work their magic in ways where the designers are unsure of themselves. In fact, one might even be able to rely on science if he is too overwhelmed in his work to be in the position to figure out if there is fatal design flaw. Even so, research should only take up the bare minimum required in designing. Science belongs to its own entity and when it trangresses to another realm, the best that science can do is to play a complimentary role instead of threatening to engulf the world of design. After all, they are different.
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| | Posted 4/18/2007 3:00 AM - 113 Views - 0 eProps - 0 comments
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