1.10 Track the Design

A fundamental principle of this book is that interface designers should not be a special group isolated from the rest of the system development effort. If this principle is to hold, then the designer must have contact with users after the design hits the street. In fact, it's easy to argue that this should be the case in any organization, because continued awareness of users and their real needs is a key requirement for a good designer.

One way to put designers in contact with users is to rotate them into temporary duty on the customer hotline. Another important point of contact for large systems is user group meetings. Managers also take advantage of these opportunities to see how real users react to the products they are selling.

Besides helping to answer the obvious question of whether the system is doing what it's designed to do, interactions with users can also yield surprises about other applications that have been found for the product, possibly opening up new market opportunities. This information can feed back into the design process as improved task descriptions for the next revision and better understanding on the part of the designer.