Wednesday, Oct 29, 2008
Methods for our madness
For all our galumphing, we have only seven primary design activities, and these are them. Exterminate, annihilate, destroy.
I’ve always loved the phrase “supposed former infatuation junkie” since it seems to encapsulate my dirty little love of “process”. I’m a process junkie. You have a process, I want to know about it.
And of course, as one of those little IA heathens, when it gets cold and dark on snowy nights, I can’t help myself but start organizing and classifying all those processes and their attendant design methods into some kind of unified theory of design. It’s a sickness, and a design, and damn interesting, and this is something I’ve discovered:
All design methods apply a limited set of problem solving methods in a design context. Design is problem solving. That’s pretty obvious and not the point. The point is that there are seven basic problem solving activities.
- Generate
- Disambiguate
- Deconstruct
- Synthesis
- Affinity
- Priority
- Context
Of course, I’ve been classifying methods with these “seven habits of highly effective methods,” but that kind of intellectual onanism only gets you so far. The entire point is that if you know where you are in the problem-solving “cycle”, and you know what kind of problem you’re solving, choosing the proper kind of method becomes more science than art, more conscious than unconscious.
Dolly Parton is playing just now on iTunes. As you read, I recommend you cue up some readin’ music.
Generate
This is the first thing any one must do when solving a problem: generate a solution. While the entire design process might be seen as generative, that’s not what I’m talking about here.
Generate refers to the class of activities where you generate several somethings. The most basic form of generation is the brainstorm where you literally generate what the fuck ever. Generation doesn’t necessarily require you explicitly imagine more than one thing. However, anytime you recommend a change to an existing idea, it’s because in your little designer head, you’ve generated an alternative model you think might work better.
Vaguely, this may be like grabbing your drink off the bar, taking a sip, and then turning to scan the establishment for potential seducees.
Difference/Disambiguate
I wanted to call this chunk disambiguate because that’s just so dead-sexy. However, the purpose of this chunk of methods is to understand what makes something something. You disambiguate the one from the others you’ve generated.
A basic form of disambiguation might be that annoying part of the content inventory when you write a little description for every page in the site.
I can’t imagine disambiguation being anything more than comparing and contrasting the various items you’ve generated. You define what constitutes their thingness, and what doesn’t. In the bar of design thinking, you’re noting blondes, brunettes, talls, shorts, crazies, meeks, and exes.
Deconstruct
In my honest opinion as a child of the swingin’ 20s, there is no technique more valuable to the information architect than to tear things apart and see what they’re made of. This includes assumptions, interfaces, goals, orders, workflows, puppies, designs, but never kittens.
When you take the BRD and rip out all of the features and intuit the business and user needs, you’re deconstructing. Regardless of how much you may drink, this is never recommended in a bar.
Synthesis
Of course, once you’ve torn things apart, you want to reassemble them into something better. This is synthesis, taking several pieces and making one whole.
When you take disparate marketing demographics and imagine your persona, Sarah Carlson, the leggy brunette who’s just your height, that is synthesis. Of course, this person is rarely ever in the bar, but that’s ok. Synthesis creates the possible (or impossible). If it created the existing, then it wouldn’t really be synthesis.
Affinity
IAs love affinity. Except with interaction designers.
A card sort is an exercise in determining affinity, the chat up of design. When grouping like with like, make sure to give them “the eyes.”
Priority
Priority is the haven of the intellectual lazy and those who would settle with good enough. Instead of accomplishing that perfect world where everything synchs together in sweet, sweet harmony, you satisfice and choose what is more and less important. Satisfice for satisfaction.
Any kind of rating is an exercise in priority. Selecting a personas primary goals is an exercise in priority.
Context
A lot of a thing’s thingness examines those intrinsic things that really thingify a thing. Context examines a thing next to other things.
We like to contextualize in different spheres: mental (user’s mind), spatial (place, layout), temporal (sequence, prior- and next-steps), and social (community). Scenarios, use cases, flows, wireframes, site maps contextualize.
Tanya Donnelly is singing now. How she isn’t queen of the world… well, it just boggles. Any ideas on why this is?
Or what about that break down? How you like that list? Missing an activity? This is a public call for an intergalactic crazy check. Sanitize me!
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