Senior Design Spring 2012: Design of Design

Chapter 15: The Divorce of Design

Most appalling development in the design disciple in the 20th century has to be divorce of both the user and the implementer.
Several designers back in the 19th century and onwards have invented significant amount of things.
However designers can rarely use their own personal experiences as a user, and must seek advice from other.
There are exceptions to the divorces, and one exception is software engineering.
"Software engineering, for example, is still so young that system architects were once programmers" (Brooks, 176).
"The designers of UNIX and especially the Open Source designers of Linux start with their own needs, build tools for their own use, and share with their own peers. I reckon this accounts for both the use success and the user passion" (Brooks 177).

Advances in the 20th century required specialization and attention from special engineers and in specified time. The implementation was critical in specialization.
Some things designed are much more complex and demand a lot of energy from the designer, as well as the cases mentioned above about time and specialization.

Most divorces happen due to miscommunications.
"Architects build elegant buildings that are hard to work in" (Brooks, 177).
Sometimes communication is poor which can prevent the engineers in knowing exactly what is needed.

A small amount of experience is better than not having any.
"This “user” experience led to the design of the first operator’s console to be program-controlled (essentially a close-connected terminal) rather than directly reflecting and affecting the hardware, a capability that enables multiple consoles for multiple operators, and a flexible allocation of tasks among operators, as well as online interactive debugging of programs" (Brooks, 178).

Remedy 2: Close Interaction with Users via Incremental Development and Iterative Delivery

Senior Design Spring 2012