coincidence – or not?
the always interesting alist apart has a new bit on the sometimes antagonistic relationship between usability and design professionals:
“There is an unarticulated war currently raging among those who make web sites. Like the war between dark- and light-skinned blacks in Spike Lee’s School Daze, this conflict is one that only its participants recognize. The war is not between commercial sites and experimental sites. It’s not between “Bloggers” and “Flashers.” This war is between usability experts and graphic designers.”
and over at mersault you’ll find a nice elaboration on a paper that discusses the design process for an ibm project called launchpad:
“What’s just as interesting, though, is the account of how two normally mortal enemies – human factors engineers and visual designers – worked together to come up with an innovative and creative solution to a user problem.
In scenes of tolerance and understanding only ever hinted at in Revelations, human factors lay down with visual design, with each party gaining some of the sensibilities of the other.
“Abomination!”, you cry. Not so.”