by Don Burnett
<soapbox=off/>
Ryan Stewart (Mr Adobe Blogger and RIA Advocate) has a great column on RIA that points to a guy who has a great blog that I didn't know about named Matt Voerman who seems to be a great user experience designer/developer. Note: He's also with Adobe. The column of interest is a series called RIA Motivators which talks about the reasoning for creating RIA applications and talks a lot about the business model and the why's and how's. I suggest everyone read this blog, it says exactly what I have been on the soapbox about for the last few months.
Points I have made before and I agree with:
Quoting Matt Voerman..
- UX is not just eye-candy to make the application look pretty.
- Usability Experts and UX Designers are not second class citizens of your devteam.
- Ensure that your UX team are continually upskilled/ trained/ educated.
- It’s imperative that not only the devteam, but all key project stake holders, be educated on the importance of UX
There is a great designer in Australia who believes that anyone in the RIA space who is a designer at this time is also a developer and integrator.. I personally don't agree with him on this but, I think it's just a problem with how the UX designer is seen in the developer community. I think we all need to address this and change and give each team member the respect they deserve and recognize their specialized skills for what they are.
Too many developers in the Microsoft world of development still think they are the "Lone Ranger" and have a God complex about development and like to control all aspects of the project instead of letting the project manager share that with other team members. That's why development team managers need to hire and respect the advice of usability experts and UX designers. You will be much more successful as a team and in the end you will have a better project. In the end User-Centric Design with consistency and coherence across the entire project is what matters.,
If you just don't get what I am saying or don't agree with it, then I think you should go out and do a "homework assignment"
Go seek out a UX designer and talk to them about your latest project. See if they have the same sensibilities as you do and are thinking about things the way you are. If they are, congratulations, you still need their advice but you are on your way. If you don't see the same things as being important, then you need to go out and hire this guy, kidnap him, whatever you need to do because they are your best hope for future success. No I am not advocating you break the law here, kidnapping is a little extreme.
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