How can new networking technologies — social media/web 2.0/call it what you will — inform how big organizations design technologies to meet user needs? In my workplace we seem to have a split personality. Sometimes decisions are made by a small mysterious private group which shuns feedback, making guesses for users for their own good. Other times committees are formed that can takes months to collect feedback and synthesize results. Both methods can have their successes, but often prove to be inefficient and fail to deliver all that is possible.
Is the answer more meetings, more project managers, greater central control? According to Andy Singleton the fewer teleconferences and fewer managers the greater the efficiency and better the results. The more layers between the user’s needs and the delivery of a solution, the more friction on the process, with slower, more expensive and less accurate results.
Perhaps the way to deliver this is to invite feedback from a lot of people, and use technology to aggregate the results. In this post Leisa Reichelt explains that in that design by community (NOT committee!) helps identify 1) emergent trends, 2) unexpected comments and 3) obvious mistakes/wrong directions. The more comments/ideas collected the better the results. These results don’t define the final design, but rather inform the decisions of the designer. And perhaps that is the best lesson here — the more direct the connection between the designer and the users, the better. And the fewer committees, consultants, survey reports, etc. between the two the better.
disambiguity » design by committee vs design by community (things we learned from the Drupal.org project)
there is much more good than bad about design by community and it’s an approach that I’d encourage you to consider…When you’re dealing with feedback from hundreds of people you don’t need to address every single issue raised. You’d be mad if you did and have no time for getting the design work done…The absolute best way to a respond to an issue is in your design, rather than in responding to comments on a blog, messageboard, flickr posting, tweet or wherever you’re gathering your feedback (and I’d encourage you to keep it fairly messy and don’t just do it in one place – more on that in a later post!)…Remember – just because you’re working with a community doesn’t make this a democratic process. Design should never be democratic.
IT Conversations | Jon Udell’s Interviews with Innovators | Andy Singleton (Free Podcast)
Influenced by the open source and agile movements, he has arrived at some startling conclusions about how to manage commercial projects. Among them: don’t interview people, don’t estimate schedules, and don’t spend time in teleconferences.
ADD YOUR COMMENT
Comments are moderated.
Randall Rode's online home for thoughts, notes, and experiments with a wide range of technology topics. Visit the about page for info on my recent projects and professional background. I welcome your comments!
Past listings from 2004 to the present
Need a home (or better home) for your website? I highly recommend HostRocket -- they are the best!
