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An interview with Kent Beck, father of “extreme programming” and Alan Cooper, most vocal proponent of interaction design […]

An interview with Kent Beck, father of “extreme programming” and Alan Cooper, most vocal proponent of interaction design go at it in Extreme Programming vs. Interaction Design.

Thanks, martha!

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  1. 1
    Andrew

    The problem with this kind of interview, which is semi-edited off-the-cuff discussion, is that you get indecipherable statements like Cooper’s:

    “I can go have my tooth pulled for about a hundred bucks. OK? But what’s the cost of having your tooth pulled? You don’t have a tooth there. OK? And that’s what’s going on in the world of software. ”

    What?

    He also says: “I don’t really care that much about buttons and tabs; it’s not significant. And I’m perfectly happy to let programmers deal with a lot of that stuff.” This kind of strikes me funny. He seems to think that you can describe behavior of interaction without describing any of the phyiscal manifestations of it. You can have a wonderful abstract description of a behavior that will get profoundly mucked up by the implementation. What does Cooper mean here?

    It seems like Cooper’s really on this “organizational change” thing, which is where the money is, I guess.

  2. 2
    Elan

    Yeah, sometimes even Alan doesn’t understand his own metaphors. After re-reading it, I still can’t explain it.

    As for the second quote, he’s just saying Interaction Designers can describe the behavior of a system without having to specify the exact controls. And if you’re pressed for time, as long as the programmers keep the essense of the behaviors right, they can choose the kind of button or tab. That said, only design-sensitive developers can follow that kind of instruction, and those are rare. Plus, it is always better when the ID takes it further and defines it all.

    And yes, when your designs are great, but they don’t get built, you say that organizations need to change. It’s true they do. There’s also good money there.

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