Business models and interaction design
A miskeeto byte from Robert Hoekman, Jr. Posted on September 26th, 2008
It’s vital that interaction designers understand the business models that surround the work they do, and we make it a point to do exactly that, so when Jared Spool wrote up his thoughts on the matter, we had to help spread the word.
We make it a point to understand our clients’ business models, and we strongly believe that you can’t design a good experience without this understanding.
So when renowned design researcher Jared Spool wrote up his thoughts on the IxDA discussion list about why understanding business models is important to interaction designers, I encouraged him to turn it into a blog post so the community at large could reference it and so that others could benefit from his insights.
“Creating a great experience can be an expensive investment. Unless the designer can clearly show the value of that investment, they’ll be constantly fighting the forces of reducing costs to increase profitability. It’s always cheaper to produce crap, so if you don’t understand how quality factors into long term profitability, crap is what will win.
Designers that can’t talk to value in the business model also can’t explain why they themselves should be on the payroll.”
Couldn’t have said it better ourselves, Jared. Thanks for a great piece.
