non-esoteric post

ok, my blog entries lately have probably gotten less and less accessible. so here’s a more pedestrian post. my focus at work right now is completing a user interface spec for our next product. the high level approach to all the new features is pretty much worked out and negotiated with engineering and marketing (i’m doing a much better job than the last release making sure everyone is involved) but the level of small detail is taking forever to flush out. i want the spec to cover every last detail, just so we don’t miss something, and it’s a huge pile of random but specific points to include.

one of the more difficult aspects with interface design i’ve found is conveying the issues or pitfalls that users run into to the engineering team. the engineers tend to be really astounding analytic and conceptual people, and they lean toward interface solutions which are conceptual and elegant. but they don’t always realize that they have that bias. i think that’s the core reason why interface design by engineers fails. it’s not because of the bias toward conceptual designs, but the lack of awareness around that bias to counteract it. so my job is mostly to be that awareness around our bias.

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