In the past year and a half of working for a company in the healthcare field, I've been reading more medical related articles. The CTO recently shared a couple of articles that offer great lessons for interaction designers.
Patients Lie, by Davis Liu, MD demonstrates what people say rarely matches with the real problem. Clients, whether internal or external, tend to present what they think should be the solution. It is our duty to listen and ask questions to get at the root cause... the real problem they need to solve.
18 Stethoscopes, 1 Heart Murmur and Many Missed Connections by Madeline Drexler is a lesson in empathy and communication. Interaction designers need to find ways to connect and empathize with the people using their solutions. If you're fortunate to have constanct access to the your end users, designers need to gain the trust of the users and minimize the "patients lie" syndrome.
Essentially, as is the case with many professional fields, interaction designers operate in a customer service role. While mad Photoshop and CSS skills are highly touted, not enough emphasis is placed on the listening, communication and service skills that are critical to being a better designer. The best prototype in the world won't matter if the solution is misguided.
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