Design Doesn’t Just Mean Color

Alice Toth, Saturday, September 1, 2007 @ 10:30 pm

In discussing our SDLC process with some colleagues, I pushed for having a separate phase between Discovery and Development; a phase where we can take the knowledge gained from Discovery and begin sketching out high-level solutions in order to get a handle on the scope before going into iteration planning. In other words, a Design Phase.

I quickly discovered that some people hear the word ‘design’ and automatically associate it with the look and feel of the GUI, regardless of what else is being said. Until I understood that, their argument that there was no need to call out an entire phase for design made absolutely no sense. To me, using design in this context means to figure out how to do something at all levels, i.e., taking the requirements (Discovery Phase) into high-level schematics (Design Phase) to better understand their relationships, dependencies and impact in the end-to-end process. Obviously, I hadn’t explained that well.

Much conversation ensued, including the standard weeping and wailing and clutching of the pearls when passionate people get together. Amazing how we were all speaking English and yet totally missing what was being said. Until someone (the former English major, of course) effectively put us back on track by saying “Ok, but what do you mean by ....”

Ah-ha! Define the terms. With a BA, IA, and Tech Arch conversing, we found we were using the same terms to mean different things and different terms to mean the same thing. Well once we started speaking the same language, we agreed there is merit in having a separate phase specifically for design and revised the diagram accordingly. As a team, we were then able to define what that means to our process. 

I could say that as a team we designed our SDLC process, but I’m not even going to go there.

Technorati Tags: SDLC, Application Design, Design Phase

user experience design

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1. 

   Would you say an accurate synonym for your use of the word Design here could be Plan? In my mind, Design=Plan, but some people, as you noticed, have much more specific definitions of the word. Very interesting post!

   Comment by Sarah Harrison, Tuesday, April 8, 2008 @ 3:26 pm

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