Usability, user - experience design, and service design, it seems to me [correct me if you think I am wrong] have considerable overlap. I'm writing this as much for my own benefit than anything else here. Just to clarify my thoughts on this...
As you know I have been involved in design education for a significant part of my career, and I am, in the light of the amount of discussion and focus these areas of design practice attract,making connections between my original understanding of the area as being mostly concerned with user interfaces, websites, software etc. [GUI for example].
What can we say about the "usability" of design education programs? Is that important? Is developing curriculum not in fact a kind of "service design". Students being the "user"...
The service is the experience...
If one for example looks at say IDEO as a pertinent example of a practice providing a global service in this area the argument is clear. All user experiences virtual and 'real world" can benefit from innovation and design strategy that addresses usability.
Yet it is equally clear that the majority of businesses and institutional organisations are yet to even consider such a notion. It is often not even a blip on the radar. Sure, "customer service" is seen as important but the experience and the impact of design on the user - experience is out of the range of the business agenda.
I think "coherence" is an issue. For example consider the case of a large organisation that actively promotes "flexibility' as a key tenant both within the organisation, and to the consumer/client, but develops multiple computer-driven systems that exclude the possibility of flexibility in the name of "customer service". The fallout is apparent "consternation" at points where there is divergence from rigid processes that misalign with the "system".
Workplace cultures that are hostile to diversity of strategy amongst departments and workgroups risk sacrificing qualities such as flexibility, thereby losing ground in the current disruptive climate where the ability to respond quickly and intuitively is increasingly paramount.
What is the outcome for client [and in fact staff]where a service/product does not respond in ways that meet individualised needs...?
Friday, July 22, 2005
New look CPH127
The new look CPH127 is clearly the improvement that the team was looking for. The interface is better organised and definitely displays better. Well done everyone who was involved with the upgrade...
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
Organisational Dinosaurs?
Check the link above...it is heartening for me at present to read this, given the recent posting I have been making regarding the moribund bureacracies and their resistance to change.
One can be forgiven for a feeling of isolation and alienation in the face of the brutal logic of the "system". far more satisfying is the experience of the interactivity of the wiki, the blog, the web board. This is especially so I find when like minded individuals can gather to discuss topics of relevance to their creative interests.
"Digital technology is providing people with the tools to produce and share content like never before, and it is set to throw the relationship between them and institutions into turmoil, say experts... "I am predicting 50 years of chaos," says leading digital thinker Clay Shirky. "Loosely organised groups will be increasingly given leverage.
"Institutions will come under increasing degrees of pressures and the more rigid they are, the more pressures they will come under. "
Co-opting the creative revolution
In my current [primary] role I can already see the impact of rapid technological change on the structures of the organisation. People's interpretation of the change and the intended use of the digital interfaces and supporting structures, for example, are divergent. This misinterpretation or lag in terms of a organisationally global understanding and utilisation of the technology, causes great"consternation"[not my word] amongst those directly involved, responsible, and accountable in the implimentation of a system. It is an interesting if painful phenomena.
I cannot say I am happy about this - I simply observe that it appears from experiential evidence to be true. the effect is, as Shirky states, "chaotic".
One can be forgiven for a feeling of isolation and alienation in the face of the brutal logic of the "system". far more satisfying is the experience of the interactivity of the wiki, the blog, the web board. This is especially so I find when like minded individuals can gather to discuss topics of relevance to their creative interests.
"Digital technology is providing people with the tools to produce and share content like never before, and it is set to throw the relationship between them and institutions into turmoil, say experts... "I am predicting 50 years of chaos," says leading digital thinker Clay Shirky. "Loosely organised groups will be increasingly given leverage.
"Institutions will come under increasing degrees of pressures and the more rigid they are, the more pressures they will come under. "
Co-opting the creative revolution
In my current [primary] role I can already see the impact of rapid technological change on the structures of the organisation. People's interpretation of the change and the intended use of the digital interfaces and supporting structures, for example, are divergent. This misinterpretation or lag in terms of a organisationally global understanding and utilisation of the technology, causes great"consternation"[not my word] amongst those directly involved, responsible, and accountable in the implimentation of a system. It is an interesting if painful phenomena.
I cannot say I am happy about this - I simply observe that it appears from experiential evidence to be true. the effect is, as Shirky states, "chaotic".
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