or making better things?
Maybe the tagline would be better if we added some words to it “Improving the quality of our reflections on the quality of (user) experience design”.
The often-overlooked question is whether we (UX, design and product management professionals) are expending enough energy reflecting on what works and what doesn’t. Today it still seems to be the case that people argue for the financial (commercial) benefits of following a UX process or of design in general, without addressing the question about how we can ensure the quality of that design process and how that quality affects the financial benefits that are due.
Two ideas are important in addressing this question:–
- are we talking of the quality of the design, the design process or the resultant experience? And if we are looking at the experience, then whose experience?
- how do we address the subjectivity inherent in judging the quality of creative artefacts? Which leads on to the question as to who should be the judge of ‘design quality’?
A recent job advert I saw had quality management as a responsibility, defined as “Experience Design quality management – ensure all design is accurate and in line with our design guidelines.” This is a very internal sense of quality and it doesn’t address the question of the quality of the actual user experience.
These ideas and questions bring us to the heart of people-centred design.
