User Experience Re-Mastered

CHAPTER 5. Sketching

A Key to Good Design

Bill Buxton

EDITOR'S COMMENTS

The question “What is design?” is hotly debated at conferences and online discussion groups. The debate over who should be allowed to call themselves a “designer” got so bad at a prominent conference once that I thought that I would have to referee a boxing match between visual designers and interaction designers.

Visual and industrial designers view what they do as “design” and often consider interaction or user experience design as second rate. This topic is so heated that moderators in both live and virtual forums often have to intervene to separate the design disputants. This chapter by Bill Buxton begins with a discussion about the meaning of design and who should be doing ...