this morning it popped up to my mind that I didn’t write a post about digital issues yet. maybe it’s because we’ve read too much about it some 3 years ago; you remember ;-)
anyway, while surfing to a very early type of a weblog at tomalak.org I discovered a post by Bruce Tognazzini. those of you who are familiar in the field of human computer interface (HCI) know his name in the context of the ‘Nielsen Norman Group’.
together with donald norman, an early pioneer in usability and author of ‘the design of everyday things’ (a classic for every designer) and jacob nielsen, usability guru of the early internet days, bruce tognazzini is working on ‘Interaction Design Solutions for the Real World’ as he calls it. in any case just ignore the ‘horrible’ web design of their sites! they are famous for that; content rules ;-)
under the brand NN/g he publishes a monthly web column ‘askTOG’. this month he writes about when ‘good design leads to a bad product’. however don’t let yourself irritate by this headline since he blames poor quality assurance (QA) procedures for this. and there we are: a typical design management challenge. or as he puts it:
“While it is not officially your problem to see that your company carries out unrelated engineering procedures properly, as user-advocate, you need to make it your problem. The best design in the world is worthless if shipped riddled with bugs.
If you work for a company that has no formal quality assurance program, begin to educate people. Work with marketing people. They can easily grasp the damage poor products can do to your company. Teach then how QA works, the ways it can save time, money, and embarrassment. They can escalate the issue to upper management, something perhaps difficult for you to do if you are working under the person who is the problem. When you come up with improved designs, take it upon yourself to test how they work. Formulate your own test plan and try them out under a variety of conditions.”
while his story is about an american digital TV service provider the underlying process is quite comprehensible. as always keep the US backgound in mind ;-) I’m sure we will experience the same kind of phenomena in a couple of years, too. >>>
