Week Twelve: Artists v. Engineers?
First off, a big thanks to Charlie for running the class last week; it was fun and interesting to see some new stuff. I was aware of the ASL program/project he'd been working on as Simon H. had talked about it in a previous class. But this is the first time I'd really seen it in action and you can color me impressed. The interface is well thought out, seems to work well technically, and has been designed carefully with the learner needs well considered. Charlie had some great points about all the considerations they had to make when they built this thing. Very cool and I have no doubt that this will really go somewhere.
Another interesting thing he brought up was the question of where today's "designer" fits in with regards to being in the "artist to manufacturer" spectrum. Much of it seems to be dependent on the scope and nature of the product being worked on. Some things are done by an individual who does all aspects of the project where others have teams of people who are much more specialized. As with many things in ID, it's tough to nail it all down to a single model or job description and makes the case for people in this field to be as multi-faceted as possible, which conveniently falls into the area of being and indispensible employee in the work life. Learn the art, learn the programming/technology....it'll all be useful at some point.