Combined with prototyping, User-Centered Design is at the core of how we work. The more we keep the people at the center of any design problem the better the solution will be. The more we involve the actual users in the design process (as opposed to focus groups or theoretical users) the more effective the designs will be. In fact, I have noticed that the projects where the users are directly involved with the design process are also the ones that are the easiest to maintain and extend afterwards.

I was reminded of the importance of database normalization today as I worked on a database for a third-party learning management system that was not normalized. Due to a glitch somewhere a student was assigned to all the parts of 12 courses in the database without being assigned to any of the 12 courses. The result was that the student expected to take the courses, but was not given access to any of them.

A normalized database would list assignment to the parts of a course as an extension to being assigned to the course, you would not be able to be assigned to the course without being assigned to it’s elements, nor could you be assigned to an element of a course without having access to the course.

One of the most useful design practices I have found is prototyping. It helps to have a solid model that everyone can relate to as the design and development progress. I recently learned of a company that use prototyping in an area where I would not have considered it possible - marketing. Apparently they test marketing approaches to tune the marketing strategies of their clients. I guess that just goes to show how valuable and broadly applicable the practice of prototyping is.

One of the reasons that many designers find it easy to stick with solutions and environments similar to what they have already done is that a change of environment can alter the success of a design. That recognition has given us art that is context specific (where the artist not only creates the painting, but specifies the lighting under which it will be displayed).

It is not possible to translate things directly or perfectly from one media to another. I have often heard people say that a movie based on a book is never as good as the book. I have also noticed that books based on movies are not as good as the movie was. The reason is that what was successful in print does not necessarily translate to the screen and vice versa.

The difference of media would explain why so few artists can succeed as generalists. They almost always specialize in a specific media. They can’t duplicate the style that works in one medium into a successful style in a different medium.

I just had a thought about design - a designer understands that one size does not fit all - a marketer works on the assumption that one size can be made to fit all - or at least a sizable population.

Marketing of products and services is influential because money is best made through volume. This is detrimental to the design process of making sure that those products and services are working for people because it is often easier and quicker in the short-term to teach people to work with the limitations and biases of the technology being sold.