Dad With Teeth

On Top of Spaghetti

As we begin to define our collective vision as a class for a project that we will live with for the next five months, it makes sense that we begin by defining the questions we need to ask of ourselves and each other. Not just about the focus and content of the site, but also our individual contributions to the whole.

Thomas Erickson’s article, “Notes on Design Practice: Stories and Prototypes as Catalysts for Communication” certainly helps to frame the issues we will be facing over the next few weeks. Each of us has unique expectations on what we will take away from this class, combined with our unique life experiences and professional disciplines. As I read the article I kept asking myself, where is the balance for delivering a successful final product? Do we emphasize delivering a quality product where we utilize the individual skills we have already developed in design, code, project management, implementation and usability? Or do we accept the idea that quality may be compromised by seizing the opportunity to work outside of our individual skill-sets. In other words, do we improve on our weak areas as individuals by taking jobs that we know little or nothing about, or do we seek out roles that fall within the domain of our career responsibilities? These are not questions for me to answer, obviously, and I have no claim on what the solution might be.

One of the ways we might achieve that solution might be implementing some of Wendy Mackay’s ideas outlined in “The Interactive Thread: Exploring Methods for Multi-disciplinary Design.” I had to go to her web site to learn that the, “INTERACTIVE THREAD is a collection of participatory design methods from a variety of disciplines that span the design process: finding out about users, generating new ideas, and selecting and implementing a design.” I must have napped during the section where she outlined what the article was about. But I did like the idea of using personal stories to define and develop design ideas. It certainly reflects Erickson’s notion of story gathering at the beginning of the design process. When starting a project or film I use what has been referred to as “The Spaghetti Theory.” I do tons of research, I spend an inordinate amount of time pondering, and then I just dump my ideas down on paper. I don’t really worry about context, complete sentences, or coherency. It is called the spaghetti theory because you just throw it against the wall to see what sticks. For me, participatory design works best when the collaborators know in the initial stages there are no boundaries and no predetermined focus. We have the freedom to explore ideas and relationships within the design and then reflect on what ideas are working best.

As we form our ideas and define our individual responsibilities we certainly can use McGovern and Norton’s list of job titles from “Publishing Team: Roles and Organization.” I am not sure I agree with all of the titles and responsibilities, and I am guessing that the jobs defined reflect the roles of contributors on a commercial web site. But hey, it is a start and we can define the jobs any way we want.

Well once again I have gone longer than two paragraphs. Sorry for the bandwidth, but there you go…

posted by Drew Keller @ Monday, January 09, 2006