An analysis of design feedback: sources and handling

Here's a nice article by Francisco Inchauste about how to handle feedback from a designer's perspective. All designers get feedback from sources of every type, and are rarely in a position to simply say "no." Sometimes the designer's job seems to be more about handling this feedback diplomatically then doing design. Representative piece of advice:

• "Don’t let your life turn into a "Kinko’s" where everything is expected to be turned around in a few hours and you are never able to spend the needed time to get it right."

Easier said than done, of course, but the article gives some guidance on how to prevent that from happening.

The categories of feedback givers and their motivations are right on the mark. I can generate personal examples of all of these categories, and it's nice that someone has thought about this hard enough to provide some perspective and some framing. This author has really Been There.

Digression: Best info source on Middle East

I get very encouraged whenever I read about people demanding more freedom for themselves from their government. The events unfolding in Iran are fascinating. Unfortunately, stories in the mainstream media don't go into much depth. That's why I rely on Juan Cole's Informed Comment blog for news about the Middle East.

Stephen Colbert took his show to Iraq because he thought the story had disappeared from the news media. It didn't disappear from Informed Comment. Great read, highly informative.

Research parks: best configuration?

Here are a couple of recent BusinessWeek articles on business parks and their role as drivers of economic growth. The first article touts Research Triangle Park as an attractive model for research parks. I live a few minutes away from RTP and attend MBA classes in the park.

The second article is skeptical of the idea of siting a research park in the woods, and argues that research parks need to be part of larger, urban communities. Ideas for new products and companies are hatched when tech workers can easily bump into each other.

Being in and around RTP, I can vouch for the fact that it's hard to find people who are interested in new products and are willing to talk business. The layout of the park, with company campuses hidden behind security gates and trees, doesn't lend itself to meeting and talking with people.

The idea of cities as optimal places for innovation and technology development is laid out in detail in a great book I read recently, Who's Your City, by Richard Florida. Florida shows how important geography is for economic development, and shows that cities are increasingly becoming centers of economic development. Nice read, and a good perspective when talking about siting new research parks.

Project management - the class

I'm in a project management class for my MBA program. I like the discussions and case studies, and to hear people's perspectives on project work. I've being been doing projects for a while, so it's nice to have a framework on which to hang my observations of project life.

One of the things I've found is that I can now pretty easily sort people who have project management training from those who don't, and people with project experience from those who don't. It's not just the jargon, it's the knowledge of things like tradeoffs and how to work with customers. It's good to have knowledge of project methodology when you go into a project, and to know who shares the same background.

Process vs progress - when the process gets in the way

I loved this article on internal process. The author describes a situtation I encountered numerous times in previous positions - the use of bureaucratic processes to prevent real work from being performed.

I worked on a team of designers and researchers that did internal consulting jobs and research for a large company. The group elevated bureaucratic process for approving work requests to an art form. The owners of the approval process used this innovation-crushing process to prevent work from being performed that didn't benefit them personally, and to steer work into their own pet projects. The team lost a lot of talented people because of it.

Kudos to Harold Sirkin for highlighting an insidious practice.

Class trip to Switzerland

I'm leaving for Switzerland today on a trip sponsored by my MBA program at NC State University. Our little group will visit companies in Zurich, Geneva, and Lausanne to talk to company representatives about business process. I'll be back in 10 days with lots of updates.

Design as paint-by-numbers

Without really trying, I've recently been identifying blogs and columns that give me a fresh perspective. I read Bill Buxton irregularly, but when I do he usually has some insight that makes me smile and nod. Here's a recent article about educating engineers and others on what user experience types do. I've gotten some of the same questions that Buxton responded to. "Could you write down a list of things you do for design, maybe like a one page bulleted list or something?"

Part of the problem is that if you do design right it looks obvious and simple in retrospect. If you do it wrong then everyone notices and comments on your failure, an instantiation of the Exploding Whale phenomenon.