The Softer Side of Product Design

There are many myths and misconceptions within (and especially outside of) the information technology (IT) /software engineering (SE) industry that this is a primarily a technical business. The tenents of software engineering is at most approximately one third technical. The remaining two thirds is the other 'grey' stuff or softer side.

What I mean by the softer side is the non-technical aspects of the business of SE. In my usual early Saturday morning ritual, drinking coffee, perusing my favorites sites and reading various articles, I stumbled upon "Software Development's Evolution towards Product Design". After reading this entertaining yet insightful article it made me think about the 2/3 non-technical side of SE. I really like all the "poo" depictions in the article's graphics.

The Lost Garden article describes the human and social side of software development that is coming into focus today. This is where technology and techniques have less impact on the success of a product. What comes to mind are modern concepts such as social engineering, social portals, human centered design and other terms used today to describe the new products and interactions that occur with software and technology in the modern world of 2006.

Given that we know where SE has been, the future is the great unexplored territory. Evolving towards 'product design' as the above article states is just one direction that we are heading. The continuous evolution towards product design is especially relevant in the consumer product development industries (gaming, multimedia, entertainment). Other problem spaces in IT are not quite yet as mature and have different SE dynamics.

One area where evolution towards 'product design' is not quite so significant is in 'grey business' of business intelligence, data mining, data warehousing, modeling/simulation and decision support. This is an SE problem space where designing products for the 'emotional needs' is not necessarily quite as beneficial yet. In this particular domain, 'practical needs' still far outweigh the 'emotional needs'. In this area the concentration is still primarily on information and knowledge creation vice a specific product that has a look, feel, and social behavior.

For the long-run I think the emotional needs will eventually catch up and surpass the practical needs in the 'grey business'. The continual evolution of information technology will permit this to occur. The evolutionary software development model toward product design described in the Lost Garden article will eventually be realized over time. However, I am sure there will be other evolutionary SE theories, techniques and models that we will observe, discover, analyze, and force a revisitation of 'softer side'. Maybe this will be dubbed 'knowledge design' since some of the 'grey business' focuses more on knowledge and information vice products.