[quoting Thomas, 3 Mar 97] In comparison, the senior creative director in the graphics and multimedia department was just tasked to write a response to a request for proposals (RFP) for a CD-ROM/kiosk marketing project and was quite emotional and defensive when the RFP asked a list of questions such as the following: (1) What is your design and development process? (2) What is the review and approval process? (3) What is the testing and acceptance process? (4) How will you determine if the project was successful? (5) What are the credentials, skills and experience of the team members? Etc.? Etc.?
That's a familiar refrain among artists and other "creative" types. Our senior graphics person, to her everlasting credit, understands the difference. She refers to what we do as a combination of graphic communication and illustration, with a large dose of technical artistic tasks (e.g., paste-up, etc.) thrown in. She's quite up front about it with the people she hires. She acknowledges the validity of "art for art's sake" (and does some amazing things herself), but simply maintains that the task in our shop is different. Some people "get it" and can "switch gears," some people never rise above the technical tasks, and some people can't get beyond the "art for art's sake" model (and tend not to last, as happened to your protagonist). I'm a big believer in true, expressive "artistic art." And, I'm constantly in awe of what our people do, but I would never confuse the two. Nor does she. And no, you can't have her!
ID, alone, makes no attempt to suggest or prescribe ANY instructional strategy, media, or treatment, just as the above model applies to any "quality services organization" or any software program.
I agree. For that reason, in work I've been doing lately with Bob Tennyson on his model of four generations of ISD, we've made the point that selection of the theoretical framework for design is a decision which is independent of the ISD model. That means that ISD is essentially a project management model.