The lonliness of the GUI designer

[Joe Schallan]

Michael Alan Dorman wrote:

>Would anyone mind if I made offensive generalizations about librarians
>here?  It seems to be acceptible when made about programmers.

Not at all. All librarians are bun-haired, rule-bound, fussy, physically
unattractive, anal-retentive control freaks, and all programmers are socially
inept, uncommunicative, zit-infested, pocket-protector wearing, geekoid 
digitheads . . .  ; )

>_Then_--once I've invested tons of work in fleshing out the proposal--and
>only then can I actually get opinions out of people. 

You say people respond much better to a fully fleshed-out proposal.
This is a problem?

>Of course, by the time I've been able to coax something worth hearing out
>of these people (a long arduous process involving you doing everything up
>to and including constructing sentences for the individual), I no longer 
>have time to make any changes.

Shouldn't we _always_ be able to make changes?  My web pages, for
example, are never finished.  I consider eternal tweaking part of
continuous improvement.

>This ignores the situation where you get input like, "Oh, sure, that's
>exactly what you want." followed three weeks later by, "We can't use that
>--- it's missing item X" for the exact same input screen.

End users will always think of ways to use your system that never
occurred to you.  Or to them, before their moment of discovery . . .
They will change their minds.  This is the way humans work.  Do we
build static systems that can never change?  Do we fit the end user to
the Procrustean bed?  Or do we try to be adaptable? 

>So, have you always given your programmers explicit, concrete designs
>before having them produce an interface? 

I suspect programmers are given vague, conflicting directions, and it must
be hell for them.  But somewhere in your organization is someone who 
does understand both the design side and the end-use side, and all the
trade-offs involved.  Seek them out.  Ignore the whiners.

>Once they have, are you sure to provide them with lucid, concise
>critiques? 

Ditto previous.

A last comment about librarians.  I would expect vast amounts of solid
research findings about how humans interact with information and information
systems to be flowing out of our schools of library science. And of course
not much is . . . Why is this?  Have we attracted too many humanities types
into the programs?  People weak in mathematical skills?  It's 1995, for
heaven's sake -- by now we should have had mountains of verifiable
findings about how people and interfaces interact. Stuff we could use
in designing systems. Stuff we could give to programmers and not force
them to flail about.


Joe Schallan
Glendale (Ariz.) Public Library
jschall at glenpub.lib.az.us
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Joe Schallan, MLS    jschall at glenpub.lib.az.us
Reference Librarian   (602) 930-3555
Glendale (Arizona) Public Library
5959 West Brown Street
Glendale, AZ  85302-1248