Most important skills of an IX Designer?

Everyone,

The wide ranging discussion about big D vs. little d got me thinking about what is most valued in a big D IX Designer. I'd be very interested in learning which of the following skill sets the IXD community thinks are the most important? (To give a little context, imagine that you are hiring a lead Designer for a project, or you are working for that lead Designer, or you are that lead Designer — which of the following would be most important.)

1.) the skills to conduct user research/ethnographic research 2.) the skills to deliver high level visual design/graphic design/brand design
3.) the skills to develop interaction solutions (wireframes, prototypes, work flows)
4.) the skills to test and refine the design
5.) the skills to lead a team through a complete process

Thoughts?

Joseph Selbie
Founder, CEO Tristream
http://www.tristream.com

I think everyone would agree that all of those qualities are important but if I had to choose one exclusively it would have to be the ability to develop interactive solutions. That's the basis of what an interaction designer is. Someone who can communicate and create compelling interactions for specific need.

On 8/16/07, Joseph Selbie jselbie at tristream.com wrote: Everyone, The wide ranging discussion about big D vs. little d got me thinking about what is most valued in a big D IX Designer. I'd be very interested in learning which of the following skill sets the IXD community thinks are the most important? (To give a little context, imagine that you are hiring a lead Designer for a project, or you are working for that lead Designer, or you are that lead Designer — which of the following would be most important.) 1.) the skills to conduct user research/ethnographic research 2.) the skills to deliver [trim]

-- Adrian Chong
www.adrianchong.com/blog

I think everything in your list is important for a big D Ix Designer who is also the lead. The one exception is # 2 — I think this is optional. Which doesn't mean the an IxD shouldn't have visual design skills or a strong esthetic sense, it should be an equal concern, but it is also a speciality within itself. I do firmly believe that any IxD should be able to conduct user research, which is in my mind the best way to model context of the overall design problem. On the flip side of this, I have successfully worked from research conducted by others, but for a lead designer they should be able to do it. Also, I think skill sets comes down to the context of the work or project and how many people there are on the team. Are we talking product/ software/application design or marcomm/ecommerce web work? Each of these offers there own unique challenges and required skill sets.

Kevin

On Aug 16, 2007, at 12:05 PM, Joseph Selbie wrote:

Everyone, The wide ranging discussion about big D vs. little d got me thinking about what is most valued in a big D IX Designer. I'd be very interested in learning which of the following skill sets the IXD community thinks are the most important? (To give a little context, imagine that you are hiring a lead Designer for a project, or you are working for that lead Designer, or you are that lead Designer — which of the following would be most important.) 1.) the skills to conduct user research/ethnographic research 2.) [trim]

Kevin Silver
Clearwired Web Services

10899 Montgomery, Suite C
Albuquerque, NM 87109

office: 505.217.3505
toll-free: 866.430.2832
fax: 505.217.3506

e: kevin at clearwired.com
w: www.clearwired.com

On Aug 16, 2007, at 11:05 AM, Joseph Selbie wrote:

1.) the skills to conduct user research/ethnographic research 2.) the skills to deliver high level visual design/graphic design/ brand design 3.) the skills to develop interaction solutions (wireframes, prototypes, work flows) 4.) the skills to test and refine the design 5.) the skills to lead a team through a complete process

My designers hate it when I answer questions of this type, but my answer is "Yes."

-- Andrei Herasimchuk

Principal, Involution Studios
innovating the digital world

e. andrei at involutionstudios.com
c. +1 408 306 6422

This may just be me working in a big company, but I would add:

6) Ability to communicate a vision of their design to business stakeholders, project team members and executives

7) Ability to prioritize risks to the user experience as a result of business decisions that reduce an interactive design

Basically, if I can't sell it to the people who pay the bills and write the code, it will remain a pretty prototype on my hard drive.

- Bryan
http://www.bryanminihan.com

- Joseph Selbie jselbie at tristream.com wrote: Everyone, 1.) the skills to conduct user research/ethnographic research 2.) the skills to deliver high level visual design/graphic design/brand design 3.) the skills to develop interaction solutions (wireframes, prototypes, work flows) 4.) the skills to test and refine the design 5.) the skills to lead a team through a complete process

depending, you'd probably also have to add:

8) the ability to gather and prioritize stakeholder requirements alongside design decisions to arrive at a solution that is satisfying to both users and the needs of the business

9) ability to translate requirements into functional specifications for use by developers

Michael

PS: this is starting to look like all those unrealistic job descriptions we like to make fun of. :-)

On Aug 16, 2007, at 2:50 PM, bjminihan at nc.rr.com bjminihan at nc.rr.com wrote:

This may just be me working in a big company, but I would add: 6) Ability to communicate a vision of their design to business stakeholders, project team members and executives 7) Ability to prioritize risks to the user experience as a result of business decisions that reduce an interactive design Basically, if I can't sell it to the people who pay the bills and write the code, it will remain a pretty prototype on my hard drive. - Bryan http://www.bryanminihan.com - Joseph Selbie jselbie at tristream.com wrote: Everyone, 1.) the skills to conduct user research/ethnographic [trim]

You can cover that with:

10) Ability to converse fluently in all code languages, from assembly to prolog, teach future languages 17 minutes after they are born, run the quarter mile in 4.3 seconds, and rewrite your resume to fit a 14 word job description in about 23 minutes. And "do" windows.

- Michael Tuminello mt at motiontek.com wrote: depending, you'd probably also have to add: 8) the ability to gather and prioritize stakeholder requirements alongside design decisions to arrive at a solution that is satisfying to both users and the needs of the business 9) ability to translate requirements into functional specifications for use by developers Michael PS: this is starting to look like all those unrealistic job descriptions we like to make fun of. :-)

PS: this is starting to look like all those unrealistic job descriptions we like to make fun of. :-)

Totally. Does anyone know anyone with all those skills?

With a lead position, what I'm more interested in is whether a person knows his or her own strengths, and knows where they need help. A person who comes to me and says they can do all those things, I regard with some skepticism. But a person who comes to me and says, "I'm really good at designing and executing user research, but I'm not your guy for visual design" is someone who probably has a more realistic view of their skills.

I'm more interested in the ability to work in a team environment, manage expectations, talk to clients, and provide good criticism to the design team. I suppose these are called "soft skills" but they're... ahem... harder to come by.

-- Dan

-- } work: eightshapes.com
} book: communicatingdesign.com
} blog: greenonions.com
} talk: +1 (301) 801-4850

Hi: Robert Reimann give some useful answer about 6 years ago. http://www.cooper.com/insights /journal _of _design /articles /so _you _want _to _be _an _interacti _1.html And later, Dan Saffer also expand his opinions from this great article.

Cheers
-- Jarod

On 8/16/07, Michael Tuminello mt at motiontek.com wrote: depending, you'd probably also have to add: 8) the ability to gather and prioritize stakeholder requirements alongside design decisions to arrive at a solution that is satisfying to both users and the needs of the business 9) ability to translate requirements into functional specifications for use by developers Michael PS: this is starting to look like all those unrealistic job descriptions we like to make fun of. :-) On Aug 16, 2007, at 2:50 PM, bjminihan at nc.rr.com bjminihan at nc.rr.com wrote: This may just be me working in a big [trim]

-- IxD for better life style.

http://jarodtang.blogspot.com

I seriously doubt such a person exists. I know people who are amazing design researchers - and decent interaction designers. But all those things roled up into one?
No. Quite simply, you will not ever get a phenomenal Kioken/2advanced interaction designer who also happens to know a whole lot about HCI and is also a great communicator.

Doesn't exist.

Better yet - name that man/woman. I would loved to meet that person, because I have met some great designers, and some great hci folks - and the two skill sets don't exist in one person.

On 8/16/07, bjminihan at nc.rr.com bjminihan at nc.rr.com wrote: You can cover that with: 10) Ability to converse fluently in all code languages, from assembly to prolog, teach future languages 17 minutes after they are born, run the quarter mile in 4.3 seconds, and rewrite your resume to fit a 14 word job description in about 23 minutes. And "do" windows. - Michael Tuminello mt at motiontek.com wrote: depending, you'd probably also have to add: 8) the ability to gather and prioritize stakeholder requirements alongside design decisions to arrive at a solution that is satisfying to both users and the needs of the business [trim]

—
~ we

n: will evans
t: user experience architect
e: wkevans4 at gmail.com

This is more like the big circle in the middle of the venn diagram. Depending on your organization, you may or may not have other specialists (usability engineers, graphic designers, product managers) who take on some of these responsibilities.

This line of work is still new enough that the specifics can vary quite a bit from organization to organization.

On Aug 16, 2007, at 3:14 PM, Dan Brown wrote:

PS: this is starting to look like all those unrealistic job descriptions we like to make fun of. :-) Totally. Does anyone know anyone with all those skills? With a lead position, what I'm more interested in is whether a person knows his or her own strengths, and knows where they need help. A person who comes to me and says they can do all those things, I regard with some skepticism. But a person who comes to me and says, "I'm really good at designing and executing user research, but I'm not [trim]

On Aug 16, 2007, at 12:25 PM, W Evans wrote:

Quite simply, you will not ever get a phenomenal Kioken/2advanced interaction designer who also happens to know a whole lot about HCI and is also a great communicator. Doesn't exist.

Yes they do. The more you guys keep thinking they don't or keep having lesser expectations of people in this field, the harder it will be to push those coming into it to grow and evolve the field to the next level.

-- Andrei Herasimchuk

Principal, Involution Studios
innovating the digital world

e. andrei at involutionstudios.com
c. +1 408 306 6422

As I said - i would love to know who....

On 8/16/07, Andrei Herasimchuk andrei at involutionstudios.com wrote: On Aug 16, 2007, at 12:25 PM, W Evans wrote: Quite simply, you will not ever get a phenomenal Kioken/2advanced interaction designer who also happens to know a whole lot about HCI and is also a great communicator. Doesn't exist. Yes they do. The more you guys keep thinking they don't or keep having lesser expectations of people in this field, the harder it will be to push those coming into it to grow and evolve the field to the next level. — Andrei Herasimchuk Principal, Involution Studios innovating [trim]

—
~ we

n: will evans
t: user experience architect
e: wkevans4 at gmail.com

As someone who has had to do the first nine of these successfully (under duress) in the past 5 years, I would say you wouldn't want one person to do all of them simultaneously in one role (I'll admit my weakness is exquisite photo-composition and mind-bogglingly beautiful design work, so no, I don't claim to be superman - I prefer nuts-and-bolts functional design work).

In adddition to minimizing the impact of each of these skils, a tremendous amount of pressure comes from someone who fills the research, design and project communicator role. As you mentioned, no one really believes one person can do all these things, so when placed in that position, you have to over-justify everything you do.

In the programming world, the same rule applies to someone who claims to be a programmer, tester, project manager and business analyst (yes, I tend to fill any gap when needed).

I agree with Dan, who said it's probably more important for a designer to know what his strengths are, what he wants to do, and what he enjoys doing the most, because that tells you what he'll do for your company, not what he's theoretically capable of.

- Bryan
http://www.bryanminihan.com

- W Evans wkevans4 at gmail.com wrote:
I seriously doubt such a person exists. I know people who are amazing design researchers - and decent interaction designers. But all those things roled up into one? No. Quite simply, you will not ever get a phenomenal Kioken/2advanced interaction designer who also happens to know a whole lot about HCI and is also a great communicator. Doesn't exist. Better yet - name that man/woman. I would loved to meet that person, because I have met some great designers, and some great hci folks - and the two skill sets don't exist in one [trim]

--

I'm going back to the original 5 for a moment:
1.) the skills to conduct user research/ethnographic research 2.) the skills to deliver high level visual design/graphic design/brand design 3.) the skills to develop interaction solutions (wireframes, prototypes, work flows)
4.) the skills to test and refine the design
5.) the skills to lead a team through a complete process

Having just read a "NextD" piece last night, I might be a little "in the zone" so to speak.

but all of this is about production and "what". Where is the How and Why parts of design?

What I mean to say here is just b/c I can do a wireframe well or even visual design doesn't mean the content is worth a hoot.

Where is the sense making, ability to create, ability to conceive, just general thinking.

I like that Dan wanted someone with what I would call good "management skills", but I also want someone who can construct and critique (deconstruct), analyze, etc.

BTW, i also agree w/ Andrei. While I also agree it is hard to find someone w/ all of it, I do think they are out there, or with ENOUGH of the pieces at different levels of quality to say they have all the pieces. some of them are on this list. Well Andrei for example, no? He even is pretty technical. Did all the PHP on Design by Fire if I remember correctly.

But i do think a designer needs 3 things:

1. ability to conceive ideas this can happen through deconstruction
this can happen through just generation

2. ability to communicate those ideas At some point an idea needs to take a form so that more than one person can understand it and buy into it. This relates to the selling stuff someone mentioned, but it is also related to collaboration. Usually this leads to some sort of craft. The ability to draw, use photoshop, etc.

3. Critique and analyze and judge
You need to know what is good, what is right, what is wrong (and again communicate that)

-- dave

-- David Malouf
http://synapticburn.com/
http://ixda.org/
http://motorola.com/

I'm going back to the original 5 for a moment:
1.) the skills to conduct user research/ethnographic research 2.) the skills to deliver high level visual design/graphic design/brand design
3.) the skills to develop interaction solutions (wireframes, prototypes, work flows)
4.) the skills to test and refine the design
5.) the skills to lead a team through a complete process

Having just read a "NextD" piece last night, I might be a little "in
the zone" so to speak.

but all of this is about production and "what". Where is the How and Why parts of design?

What I mean to say here is just b/c I can do a wireframe well or even visual design doesn't mean the content is worth a hoot.

Where is the sense making, ability to create, ability to conceive, just general thinking.

I like that Dan wanted someone with what I would call good "management
skills", but I also want someone who can construct and critique (deconstruct), analyze, etc.

BTW, i also agree w/ Andrei. While I also agree it is hard to find someone w/ all of it, I do think they are out there, or with ENOUGH of the pieces at different levels of quality to say they have all the pieces. some of them are on this list. Well Andrei for example, no? He even is pretty technical. Did all the PHP on Design by Fire if I remember correctly.

But i do think a designer needs 3 things:

1. ability to conceive ideas this can happen through deconstruction
this can happen through just generation

2. ability to communicate those ideas At some point an idea needs to take a form so that more than one person can understand it and buy into it. This relates to the selling stuff someone mentioned, but it is also related to collaboration. Usually this leads to some sort of craft. The ability to draw, use photoshop, etc.

3. Critique and analyze and judge
You need to know what is good, what is right, what is wrong (and again communicate that)

Posted from the new ixda.org
http://beta.ixda.org/discuss?post=19386

I see them as all very distinct people.

# 1 is one type of person. An ethnographer, market- or user-experience researcher depending on the company or industry.

For # 2 the person needs to have an understanding of the users and what the business is trying to convey in the design. But, artistic skill is required.

# 's 3-4 seem pretty related. It's kind of hard to provide good recommendations for a design without a good understanding of the limitations of the tools and the constraints you're working with, and prototyping/wire-framing tends to be very iterative in practice anyway.

For # 5 I'd argue that a good manager isn't necessary the best in their field, but they do need to be good at making the business case, keeping others motivated, and having the big picture view.

But, if you have a 4 person team where each person is really great at each of those above things, a good manager who understands that a good design is functional and aesthetic, and they can all work together to fit a need, then you've got a rockin' team.

In any case, I wouldn't make my team just one person. Then you get only one person's design aesthetic interpretation. But, that might be another discussion.

Posted from the new ixda.org
http://beta.ixda.org/discuss?post=19386

As a side topic, I'm probably better at user research, but I'd like to get technically better. Any suggestions?

Posted from the new ixda.org
http://beta.ixda.org/discuss?post=19386

Allow me to regroup and clarify this discussion before it veers into another channel. I noticed a couple of trends in the comments made: one, was to add yet more skills to my list of five (more on that in a second) and, two, was to discuss whether or not such a person could exist.

Neither theme quite hit what I was looking for. What I'm most interested in is what you think are the most important skill sets required to be a lead IX Designer.

Let me modify my list a bit in response to your input (see below) and then ask the question in another way. Could you please rank the following skill sets in order of importance (since none of these skills are unimportant). Start with "1" as the most important. Andrei — no ranking everything as a "1" ; ).

1.) the skills to conduct user research/ethnographic research 2.) the skills to deliver high level visual design/graphic design/brand design
3.) the skills to develop interaction solutions (wireframes, prototypes, work flows)
4.) the skills to test and refine the design
5.) the skills to lead a team through a complete process 6.) the skills to "sell" and persuade clients/stakeholders 7.) the skills to gather and determine business requirements 8.) the sills/ability to interpret/translate/understand related programming and coding
9.) the skills to express the design as a technical specification

I may have missed one or two but I think I caught the gist of several comments. I've merged some comments to come out with 9 not 10 — and I think 8 and 9 could be combined, but I left them separate.

(David, I am not ignoring your comments but I'm hoping to stay on the subject of skill sets and not get into the qualities required. For the sake of this question I'd like everyone to assume that when they rank the relative importance of one of the nine skill sets above that it implies the person can do it excellently. Your comment seems to be more about what qualities a person needs to posses in order to perform with excellence. A good discussion but perhaps another thread.)

Joseph Selbie
Founder, CEO Tristream
http://www.tristream.com

Original Message
From: discuss-bounces at lists.interactiondesigners.com [mailto:discuss-bounces at lists.interactiondesigners.com] On Behalf Of David Malouf
Sent: Thursday, August 16, 2007 1:38 PM
To: IXDA list
Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] Most important skills of an IX Designer?

I'm going back to the original 5 for a moment:
1.) the skills to conduct user research/ethnographic research 2.) the skills to deliver high level visual design/graphic design/brand design
3.) the skills to develop interaction solutions (wireframes, prototypes, work flows)
4.) the skills to test and refine the design
5.) the skills to lead a team through a complete process

Having just read a "NextD" piece last night, I might be a little "in the zone" so to speak.

but all of this is about production and "what". Where is the How and Why parts of design?

What I mean to say here is just b/c I can do a wireframe well or even visual design doesn't mean the content is worth a hoot.

Where is the sense making, ability to create, ability to conceive, just general thinking.

I like that Dan wanted someone with what I would call good "management skills", but I also want someone who can construct and critique (deconstruct), analyze, etc.

BTW, i also agree w/ Andrei. While I also agree it is hard to find someone w/ all of it, I do think they are out there, or with ENOUGH of the pieces at different levels of quality to say they have all the pieces. some of them are on this list. Well Andrei for example, no? He even is pretty technical. Did all the PHP on Design by Fire if I remember correctly.

But i do think a designer needs 3 things:

1. ability to conceive ideas this can happen through deconstruction
this can happen through just generation

2. ability to communicate those ideas At some point an idea needs to take a form so that more than one person can understand it and buy into it. This relates to the selling stuff someone mentioned, but it is also related to collaboration. Usually this leads to some sort of craft. The ability to draw, use photoshop, etc.

3. Critique and analyze and judge
You need to know what is good, what is right, what is wrong (and again communicate that)

— dave

—
David Malouf
http://synapticburn.com/
http://ixda.org/
http://motorola.com/

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"Technically better" at designing/building functional designs (using D/X/HTML), or technically better at understanding the limits and capabilities of systems in which you design?

The first takes practice and lots of experimentation, starting small, breaking big problems into little ones, and working at them one at a time.

The second takes immersion in many of the systems you're interested in. Learn to detect the patterns in code that indicate what is and isn't possible. There's no general approach that works everywhere, but administrator and UI guidelines provide great clues to what you can drive into a system, and what you can't. Deja News (Google Groups) is the bible for finding solutions to problems, as are dedicated discussion forums for any given system (when they exist).

- Bryan
http://www.bryanminihan.com

Original Message
From: discuss-bounces at lists.interactiondesigners.com [mailto:discuss-bounces at lists.interactiondesigners.com] On Behalf Of Allison Sent: Thursday, August 16, 2007 7:18 PM
To: discuss at lists.interactiondesigners.com
Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] Most important skills of an IX Designer?

As a side topic, I'm probably better at user research, but I'd like to get technically better. Any suggestions?

Bit thinking, sensemakong etc. is the most important skill, IMHO. Skipping it to me is a big issue and dissolves the role to a production person instead of a designer/director.

Dave

David Malouf
dave at synapticburn.com
http://synapticburn.com
http://beta.ixda.org
(Sent from my iPhone)

On Aug 16, 2007, at 7:29 PM, "Joseph Selbie" jselbie at tristream.com wrote:

Allow me to regroup and clarify this discussion before it veers into another channel. I noticed a couple of trends in the comments made: one, was to add yet more skills to my list of five (more on that in a second) and, two, was to discuss whether or not such a person could exist. Neither theme quite hit what I was looking for. What I'm most interested in is what you think are the most important skill sets required to be a lead IX Designer. Let me modify my list a bit [trim]

Forgive me if it sounded as if I wanted to skip "the big issue". It was not my intention to imply that your points were unimportant. Quite the contrary. They go right to the heart of what makes great IX Designers great. I was merely trying to get a feel for what others saw as the essential skill sets for a lead IX Designer. I was making the assumption that anyone who could be considered for the role of lead IX Designer would have to have the kind of abilities you put forth.

Perhaps we could start another discussion entitled, Most important abilities of an IX Designer. It cuts close to my original question but really takes us deeper rather than broader.

Joseph Selbie
Founder, CEO Tristream
http://www.tristream.com

Original Message From: David Malouf [mailto:dave.ixd at gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, August 16, 2007 5:10 PM To: Joseph Selbie Cc: IXDA list Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] Most important skills of an IX Designer? Bit thinking, sensemakong etc. is the most important skill, IMHO. Skipping it to me is a big issue and dissolves the role to a production person instead of a designer/director. Dave David Malouf dave at synapticburn.com http://synapticburn.com http://beta.ixda.org (Sent from my iPhone) On Aug 16, 2007, at 7:29 PM, "Joseph Selbie" jselbie at tristream.com wrote: [trim]

Ok i feel better.

David Malouf
dave at synapticburn.com
http://synapticburn.com
http://beta.ixda.org
(Sent from my iPhone)

On Aug 16, 2007, at 8:25 PM, "Joseph Selbie" jselbie at tristream.com wrote:

Forgive me if it sounded as if I wanted to skip "the big issue". It was not my intention to imply that your points were unimportant. Quite the contrary. They go right to the heart of what makes great IX Designers great. I was merely trying to get a feel for what others saw as the essential skill sets for a lead IX Designer. I was making the assumption that anyone who could be considered for the role of lead IX Designer would have to have the kind of abilities you put forth. [trim]

[Forgive me if you have gotten this twice — but it appeared to have gotten lost in the discussion posts.]

Allow me to regroup and clarify this discussion before it veers into another channel. I noticed a couple of trends in the comments made: one, was to add yet more skills to my list of five (more on that in a second) and, two, was to discuss whether or not such a person could exist.

Neither theme quite hit what I was looking for. What I'm most interested in is what you think are the most important skill sets required to be a lead IX Designer.

Let me modify my list a bit in response to your input (see below) and then ask the question in another way. Could you please rank the following skill sets in order of importance (since none of these skills are unimportant). Start with "1" as the most important. Andrei — no ranking everything as a "1" ; ).

1.) the skills to conduct user research/ethnographic research 2.) the skills to deliver high level visual design/graphic design/brand design
3.) the skills to develop interaction solutions (wireframes, prototypes, work flows)
4.) the skills to test and refine the design
5.) the skills to lead a team through a complete process 6.) the skills to "sell" and persuade clients/stakeholders 7.) the skills to gather and determine business requirements 8.) the sills/ability to interpret/translate/understand related programming and coding
9.) the skills to express the design as a technical specification

I may have missed one or two but I think I caught the gist of several comments. I've merged some comments to come out with 9 not 10 — and I think 8 and 9 could be combined, but I left them separate.

(David, I am not ignoring your comments but I'm hoping to stay on the subject of skill sets and not get into the qualities required. For the sake of this question I'd like everyone to assume that when they rank the relative importance of one of the nine skill sets above that it implies the person can do it excellently. Your comment seems to be more about what qualities a person needs to posses in order to perform with excellence. A good discussion but perhaps another thread.)

Joseph Selbie
Founder, CEO Tristream
http://www.tristream.com

It's the last in my long laundry list of skills, but perhaps it's for the same reason Joseph cites. Clearly the # 1 skill of an IxD professional is the ability to invent and visualize a coherent solution (and be able to effectively communicate
it to others).

Robert.

On 8/16/07, David Malouf dave.ixd at gmail.com wrote: Ok i feel better. David Malouf dave at synapticburn.com http://synapticburn.com http://beta.ixda.org (Sent from my iPhone) On Aug 16, 2007, at 8:25 PM, "Joseph Selbie" jselbie at tristream.com wrote: Forgive me if it sounded as if I wanted to skip "the big issue". It was not my intention to imply that your points were unimportant. Quite the contrary. They go right to the heart of what makes great IX Designers great. I was merely trying to get a feel for what others saw as the essential skill sets for [trim]

-- Robert Reimann
President, IxDA

Manager, User Experience
Bose Corporation
Framingham, MA

On 16/08/07, W Evans wkevans4 at gmail.com wrote: I seriously doubt such a person exists. I know people who are amazing design researchers - and decent interaction designers. But all those things roled up into one? No.

I disagree. As I think someone else said a good interaction designer should be a good design researcher.

I would even challenge you can do one without a good deal of experience of the other. When carrying out ethnographic research my knowledge of potential interaction solutions allows me to test early hypothesis with real users (not via porotypes but through their views, attitudes and ways of going about tasks).

Quite simply, you will not ever get a phenomenal Kioken/2advanced interaction designer who also happens to know a whole lot about HCI and is also a great communicator. Doesn't exist.

First up there are those who do very 'experiential' design - that is lots of visual impact and general 'wow' factor. These are not interaction designers as such but specialists in creating a certain type of experience. There are a lot of design houses out there that do this well and tend to end up doing 'microsites'. It's an extension to the field of visual design and a specialist will build up a pallete of flash codes snippets and techniques, sources of media and visual styles. But in terms of interaction, often it's not phenomenal but deliberately enigmatic and emotive. In interaction design terms this is only part of the spectrum.

I think many here would disagree. To be a good interaction designer I feel it helps have experience of research, experience of visual, motion and sound design, programming, presenting ideas to small and large audiences, creation of detailed specification from a visual, brand and technical point of view, ability to understand and liase with business drivers and prioratise what they want, understanding of the importance of content, understanding the balance between usability and the need to 'guide' the user, the ability to work with a new medium and adapt to it....

I've done all these and I've met others who have - but one person can't do all this as part of a role, that's why all effective projects are team efforts built from specialists.

Also I consider HCI and outdated term, but maybe that's just me.

-- Stewart Dean

Why rank them at all ? Its like ranking protons, neutrons, electrons- which do you think are the most important ingredeints for making good matter?

- Sini

On Aug 16, 2007, at 7:29 PM, "Joseph Selbie" jselbie at tristream.com wrote:

Allow me to regroup and clarify this discussion before it veers into another channel. I noticed a couple of trends in the comments made: one, was to add yet more skills to my list of five (more on that in a second) and, two, was to discuss whether or not such a person could exist. Neither theme quite hit what I was looking for. What I'm most interested in is what you think are the most important skill sets required to be a lead IX Designer. Let me modify my list a bit [trim]

Hi Allison,

If technical opportunities don't present themselves at your workplace, consider taking on a volunteer project, or alternately creating your own portfolio site from scratch. Either path will help you get familiar with the webcraft required to implement a design. Volunteering your services feels pretty good too, especially when you get kind thank-yous from site visitors. Projects you work on as a volunteer tend to not have the insane-schedule-of-doom quality that professional jobs often do, so you have the time to relax and learn along the way.

At your workplace, there may be ways you can help to implement a design without being an actual coder. For instance, one of the things I do as a designer is create production art for software applications. The developers are typically delighted when I volunteer to edit the XML properties files that set art in specific locations within the interface and map the graphics to application states. This is something of a tedious job for them, but it lets me see how each of the graphical assets work within the interface and gives me an opportunity to immediately note and correct any mistakes I've made with the art.

Related to your user research strength, you might consider making site visits in the company of a systems engineer or other similar technical person if that is appropriate within your domain. This won't apply as much for web apps or e-commerce as it does for designers of devices or complex system software. Although system engineers think that they're onsite to solve technical problems, designers will often note an underlying design flaw that created the need for the visit in the first place. Watching users struggle with your products, and then watching skilled engineers struggle to help them, is powerfully humbling as well as getting you more familiar with the technical realm your products must thrive in. And whenever I've gone into the field with engineers and introduced myself as a designer on the product team, customers have given me ideas (aka "an ear-full" ) on how to make our stuff work better. Hope this is helpful,

Michael Micheletti

On 8/16/07, Allison alliwalk1980 at yahoo.com wrote: As a side topic, I'm probably better at user research, but I'd like to get technically better. Any suggestions?

Thanks for your suggestions.

Back to the discussion topic, Stewart's point about the ability to respond a user's activities during research is the point I was trying to make with my first post with persons 3-4.

After the reclarification, I wonder if it's all just semantics, or perhaps in our minds we have what we understand as two types of people? An interaction designer and a 'user-experience' designer? I see the latter as someone who is more research focused, while the former has more technical skills.

However, if you are going to be a lead designer, then you should have leadership skills.

Posted from the new ixda.org
http://beta.ixda.org/discuss?post=19386

How about, in a lead IxD Designer...

The ability to leverage or direct user research activities to drive the most value into interactive designs. [Perhaps this combines the roles and doesn't require the designer to do the research].

- Bryan
http://www.bryanminihan.com

Original Message
From: discuss-bounces at lists.interactiondesigners.com [mailto:discuss-bounces at lists.interactiondesigners.com] On Behalf Of Allison Sent: Friday, August 17, 2007 5:52 PM
To: discuss at lists.interactiondesigners.com
Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] Most important skills of an IX Designer?

Thanks for your suggestions.

Back to the discussion topic, Stewart's point about the ability to respond a user's activities during research is the point I was trying to make with my first post with persons 3-4.

After the reclarification, I wonder if it's all just semantics, or perhaps in our minds we have what we understand as two types of people? An interaction designer and a 'user-experience' designer? I see the latter as someone who is more research focused, while the former has more technical skills.

However, if you are going to be a lead designer, then you should have leadership skills.

Posted from the new ixda.org
http://beta.ixda.org/discuss?post=19386

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designers interactifs, the professional association I founded in 2006 with 7 other designers in France, has started to write profession descriptions (\"fiches métiers\" in french). Here is what we started for interaction designer (work in progress): http://designersinteractifs.jot.com/WikiHome/Metiers du design interactif/Interaction Designer

Benoît Drouillat
www.designersinteractifs.org

Sorry for coming a little late to this discussion, but I wanted to toss out a point I think hasn't been made yet:

When discussing what makes me a good lead IxD, I often talk about how I had to learn to delegate, to trust, and to manage. The skills listed for an interaction designer so far are important, I agree, but for a lead position I also feel I need to add:

They're really hard skills to demonstrate as well, because none of them tend to end up in your portfolio.

Best, --Alan

I also wanted to respond to a point Stew Dean made. Possibly it's semantics, but let's see...

On 8/17/07, Stew Dean stewdean at gmail.com wrote: ... a good interaction designer should be a good design researcher. I would even challenge you can do one without a good deal of experience of the other.

I think I want to distinguish design goodness from design fit. For example, we recently saw some prototypes for redesign of the Bloomberg interface. In looking at these designs we can rate them as better or worse design-qua-design.

But the major objection to them was that no matter how good the design was it wasn't appropriate for the typical user of today's Bloomberg systems. Today's users want extremely high information density, flat and direct access to data, etc. This produces a second rating of design "goodness", on which all three of the designs are rated poorly.

Now I would never argue that design skills or design research aren't necessary components. What I'm arguing for is the ability to create a design that follows good usability and interaction design principles, absent knowledge of the specific users. This kind of design skill is grounded in fundamentals like color and typography, layout and visual perception, that are generally shared. An appreciation of aesthetic and how form and function interact don't require detailed understanding of the user population of stock traders and portfolio managers. Empathy for peoples' struggles and stresses in general isn't the same as knowing that traders hate to use the mouse because they're often typing one-handed while holding a phone/blackberry in the other hand.

Is this making any sense to anyone else?
--Alan