Nathan Shedroff: The InfoDesign interview (01 Mar 2004)

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Nathan Shedroff: The InfoDesign interview (01 Mar 2004)
I think that many designers are frustrated with systems that they figure out too quickly: be given a project and it's requirements, ask a few questions about the audience, find inspiration from somewhere, make it work a little better and/or make it look nicer, rinse, repeat. While this might have an impact on the particular product or service and its few users, it never calls into question whether that product or service should be continued - or begun - in the first place. The specs are never what we think the real issues are and the big decisions are already made by the time we're anywhere near the project. The only time we get to question these issues are on our own projects or very small ones. So, we never feel like we're "making a difference" in anything substantial. Everything we do is incremental or micro on the scale of possible change. It's very disempowering after awhile and I think a lot of designers just give up thinking that anything is possible.

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