#18396
Design as practiced is considerably different from design as idealized in academic discussions of 'good design.' A few years ago, I made the transition from the university to industry--a deliberate decision on my part to practice what I had long been preaching, and to try to understand the constraints and pressures from the business point of view. How nice it would be, I thought, to be able to see products in the marketplace that reflected my design philosophy. This chapter recounts one stage of my learning process: issues that seem simple from the vantage point of academia are often extremely complex when seen from inside the industry. Indeed, the two sides seem hardly to be speaking the same language. In the course of my experiences, I have come to recognize that industry faces numerous problems that are outside of the scope of the traditional analyses of design. In particular, there are management and organizational issues, business concerns, and even corporate culture.
Norman, Donald A. JND.org (1999). Design>Usability>Industry and Academy