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Special Interest Group:
Understanding Conceptualizations Across the Great Divide
Lillie R. Jenkins, Online Computer Library Center. Inc.
Thursday, July 1, 1999, 5:15-6:30 pm
Developers and designers create products that consumers either
use or ignore. Often when the resulting product is not used,
users blame designers, designers blame users and a vicious cycle
ensues. Behaviors like these occur even during the design cycle
where usability professionals have the role of interpreting users
and designers needs/goals/actions. Current reporting techniques
stretch usability professionals between corporate realities, user
needs, and a commitment to uphold design practices. These
techniques often leave us with more questions than answers when
we seek to discover how to bridge the divide between users' and
designers' conceptualizations about a product's functions and
purposes.
What seems to be needed is a way to grasp and report the
conceptualizations of each group and how they differ. How do we
allow both groups to speak about what they think or experience
and enable them to understand the construal of the other group
and how these interpretations may affect the product. Several
questions come to mind. Does the divide exist? Are there ways
of anticipating, and initiating successful communications between
groups despite conceptual differences? What methods would best
befit such situations? What insights may we gain from the
experiences of other usability professionals who negotiate these,
sometimes conflicting, interests intelligently and gracefully?
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