Thought of attempting initiate a small summary of where an author-oriented analysis and critique could help in interaction design..
- The most explicit use is to be able examine the circumstances and the identity of the maker to inform our understanding of the interaction itself.
- Understanding the author/maker can inform our own practices. We could draw on the analysis of other designers/authors/makers to reflect on our own methods, techniques, values, and relationships while we learn about our spaces and compose our solutions.
- In observing how the identity and circumstances of an author/designer contributes to the making of the work, we can employ this understanding into observing our selves during design.. We therefore become more aware of the meanings we are imposing and question whether we want these meanings to be embedded in the design.
Thoughts?
Interaction Culture: The Class Blog 
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October 1, 2010 at 6:49 pm
jeffreybardzell
All of that sounds very reasonable to me.
To your points I would add the fact that designer-centric theories (and expression theories) also help clarify (a) ways the community might train rising designers, such as yourselves; and (b) help us understand how designers can communicate designerly ways of knowing to non-designer stakeholders.
Also, please remember to categorize your post.
October 3, 2010 at 5:16 pm
Nina Mehta
Thanks for posting this. This resonates a lot with me actually.
When I was a newspaper designer, our community would troll the blogs and critique redesigns. Newspapers are intrinsically tied and deeply rooted in their geolocation (most, at least) so the global resign conversations were always heavily debated.
Why is the the Oklahoman fairly minimal with color whereas the Chilean papers were bursting with color, large type and huge photos? And that’s because the design has to match the language and voice of the people, not the designers.
The authors (the designers) are either in house or consultants. So we talked a lot about the challenge for these consultants. They drop in to a city they’ve never been to and try to make all kinds of design judgements without knowing the culture and community. Of course, that directly translates to what we do as interaction designers and is especially important to consider when we critique.
But I’m thinking about #1 and how the makers related to Silicon Valley. There’s this bubble problem, even in user testing where the general demographic is just more tech savvy. So, for understanding users it’s a problem, but once you learn that the Maker works, lives, dines, shops in a place, in a certain context, it can explain how certain trends come along. Everyone is making glossy buttons all of a sudden. Why? So then we think about the makers:
They all live, breath, work and talk together. They use each other’s products, eat lunch together, read the same blogs and see each other on the weekend. Whereas if we look at a maker in Chicago, or Bloomington local, certain sylistic judgements don’t make sense.
I think I’ve gotten off on a comment ramble. Basically, thinking about the maker’s context is important. Agreed.