Importance of history to practitioners
Greetings, all. I thought you might like to hear the following. In a meeting with a small software company in Ann Arbor that emphasizes user-centered, agile development, a colleague and I asked what subjects should be included in an academic program in interaction design. The firm's chief designer, who also has a programming background, said that the most important course would be history of computing! His justification was that a designer needed to know where all the tools and techniques came from before designing current systems. His point might be obvious to many on this list, but when professionals in the practical world say things like this, it makes it a lot easier to get approval in a university to offer -- or even require -- classes like history of computing. Regards, Bill
On 11/10/16 9:59 AM, McMillan, William W wrote:
a designer needed to know where all the tools and techniques came from before designing current systems.
Going a little bit deeper, you need to know what has been tried, what did and didn't work, and why. If you come out of school and go to work with experienced people in an established company, you get to learn that. I could go into a fairly long tirade about why startups full of bright-eyed kids do so much wheel reinvention, but I won't.
Hi Bill, That's an encouraging anecdote. On a related note, I taught a history course over the past few years at The School of Visual Art's MFA In Interaction Design program, which touched on the history of hypertext and early computer systems as well as more traditional design topics. If anyone's interested, here's the syllabus: https://medium.com/@awright249/a-history-of-design-db715f5ad529#.sy12nmfg8 Best, Alex -- Alex Wright alex@agwright.com | www.alexwright.org On Thu, Nov 10, 2016 at 12:59 PM, McMillan, William W < william.mcmillan@cuaa.edu> wrote:
Greetings, all.
I thought you might like to hear the following. In a meeting with a small software company in Ann Arbor that emphasizes user-centered, agile development, a colleague and I asked what subjects should be included in an academic program in interaction design. The firm's chief designer, who also has a programming background, said that the most important course would be history of computing!
His justification was that a designer needed to know where all the tools and techniques came from before designing current systems.
His point might be obvious to many on this list, but when professionals in the practical world say things like this, it makes it a lot easier to get approval in a university to offer -- or even require -- classes like history of computing.
Regards, Bill
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participants (3)
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Al Kossow -
Alex Wright -
McMillan, William W