Designing for the Digital Age: How to Create Human-Centered Products and Services

Chapter 22. Detailed Design Process and Practices

Although there's a great deal of work to do during detailed design, the good news is that, with the exception of visual system development, it largely builds on the techniques used during framework definition. However, this is also the work that makes the difference between your design getting into the hands of users or gathering dust on a shelf, so your collaboration and time management skills and your ability to juggle a thousand details are just as important as your knowledge of detailed design principles and patterns.

This chapter describes techniques for evolving each aspect of the design, ways the disciplines can work together to ensure coherence and completeness, and some ideas for handling common difficulties.

Evolving the Interaction Design: Round One

The interaction designers may begin the phase (or the work on a specific design topic) with a day or two of supplemental research, especially if the domain is complex. As shown in Figure 22.1, the ideal process then involves taking a first crack at the nearly complete behavioral design (whether for a whole interface or a discrete topic) at the whiteboard level, then reviewing it informally with design engineers and subject matter experts to get their initial feedback. By "nearly complete design," I mean that every widget, word on the screen, and likely scenario are all accounted ...