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On Process and Design

January 13th, 2008

I consider myself something of a hybrid, flirting with both the design and development side of things. I also like to think of myself as something of a student of the discipline; reading and consuming as much knowledge as possible on the process as well as the practice. Something I took to pondering while reading My Job Went to India was why the majority of theory books tend to be from the software side?

It’s appears the same when it comes to discussions of process, and in turn innovation within process. Their is lots of talk around Agile processes and practices amongst software developers, but I don’t see lots of designers discussing the how. User Centred Design is maybe a slight exception, but again it seems to be the software people and information architects, as apposed to those who consider themselves designers, who talk about this. I’m just wondering whether others have found this too?

The Design Council published a pretty good resource About Design but I haven’t seen much other real literature on a modern design process. Communicating Design is a fantastic book on design documentation, but doesn’t frame this in terms of a discussion of process. If anyone knows of any books or blogs out their on the subject I’d love to know about them. I’d love to be proved wrong and end up with a good reading list.

My Job Went to India (which is excellent by the way) contains 52 hints and tips for your career as a programmer. In reality most of these ideas apply to any creative discipline, only the examples and analogies need changing. You could probably argue the same for books like The Pragmatic Programmer, Practices of an Agile Developer and Peopleware. I’m also thinking whether or things like the mythical man month apply? Or if other truths of the design practice exist?

The importance of design in any discipline is becoming increasingly well recognised. But where will the next generation of managers learn about how to manage designers and the design process? One of the problems with front end web development and design work has been the difficulty of learning the craft. Is this the same for managing the web design process?

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6 Responses to “On Process and Design”

  1. At BarCamp London 2 my humbling attempt at a presentation focused on the subject of basic design patterns for developers, where by design I mean aesthetics, typography and visually engaging presentation. One of the comments from one of the audience was a recommendation for Kelly Goto’s book “Web Redesign 2.0: Workflow that works”. Might be worth a look?

    Ben Darlow | January 13th, 2008

  2. Ooh, good book (and good point). Their are a few books of the sort lying around I guess. Return on Design would be another good example come to think of it. However, interestingly neither are particularly recent or (as far as I know) likely to be read by designers as apposed to project managers.

    gareth | January 13th, 2008

  3. Many designers/developers are concerned with the possibility of having their jobs outsourced to India, but there’s a genuine appreciation for the importance of getting the branding, design, and copy produced by talented, target-market knowledgeable professionals. And seeing how the job of a designer is becoming more aligned and intertwined with interactions and user experience (partly due to Ajax), I’d like to think that there’s room for some great resources & communities (like the one’s you’re looking for) to flourish, if they don’t exist already.

    Neil | January 14th, 2008

  4. I actually don’t know too many people worried about outsourcing, at least at the moment and in the web sphere. The book makes a pretty good case for it being a generally good thing – the title is a little misleading and sensationalist.

    I think their are lots of good resources around, I’m just intrigued that most are more software orientated.

    gareth | January 14th, 2008

  5. I think the issue with most resources being about software design is centred around the fact that in spite of software being around for a long long time, it is still not a wide practice to use good software design (call it best practice or common sense).

    In terms of the web, it is a given that this is (comparatively) a new field and I think progress is being made in that front. Kudos to Apple for bringing a discussion of design into the mainstream industry rather than just the “cool creative kids”. That is one way to prove a business case to any money hungry business person. I think what the industry or the discipline needs are more shining examples of what good design can accomplish in terms of real hard cash (which is always what motivates business-like people).

    I think the key factor of differentiation is between quantity vs quality. Outsourcing always plays on the quantity factor.

    Sarat Pediredla | January 14th, 2008

  6. I think you are making a good point, about of the different approach taken to the deisgn process taken by developers and designers, and i’d agree that there are very few books on the design process for creating a good website or web app.

    There are lots of good books on gereral “design” as in the process of creating good designs that are typographically, aesthetically and geometrically good. The none designers design book and the none webdesigners design book by robyn williams are classics. There are also books like how to look good in print that cover some good design processes there are also a number of much more specific books like “homepage” that cover things like anatomy of a home page – percentages given over to branding v’s information or white space. I have even seen books devoted to the design process and history for specific website.

    It has to be said though that the process of design is a very individual relationship between client, enduser and designer.

    I currently work in IT, but previously work in Graphic Design and Studied Business and Finance before that, and have seen many many different approaches to this, none of which i could pin point as the holy grail of design processes.

    david coxon | January 16th, 2008

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