Rampant CodeCraft

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/dd419663.aspx

Great term. I’m asked to do a little Visual Design magic at the end of the design phase and again at the end of the development phase to make sure the application is ‘slick’ enough to blind the client in a demo. But Interaction Design is where the gold’s at. It’s our best chance to get the user to experience pleasure when using the application, make them fans, or at least give transparency, allowing the user to focus wholly on the job they are doing, not the software obstacle they are clicking on all day. It is something we need to be doing to ensure the very expensive application the client is buying will fulfill their needs. But this company never does it. Why? Because we like to gamble? Because we like to fail? Because we don’t know any better? Or maybe because we don’t ask the right questions of the right people at the right times?

Is it as simple as requesting a future-user of the application be involved from the beginning and stay involved for usage evaluations and design refinements each iteration? Only one way to find out.

If you ask the client for an investment of an actual user to assist, and you and your PM get thrown out of the meeting and lose the contract, I’ll buy you lunch to cheer you up. ;)