Notes from a wireframe world

When I first heard about “Design Through Dialogue” I was a little sceptical. Firstly the book is aimed at architects not webdesigners, and secondly “Design Through Dialogue” makes me think of designing by consensus which, as I’m sure you all agree, leads to the most dull, boring and generally user unfriendly sites out there.

However far from designing by consensus “Design Through Dialogue” is about taking hold of the conflict that exists when a client wants one thing and the designer (an architect in this case) wants another and seeing it through, and not taking the easy option of a compromise but forming a new third way that doesn’t compromise and is acceptable to both, it still sounds like compromise to me, but the buildings produced via this methodology (e.g. the Supreme Court building, Jerusalem (see http://www.theodora.com/wfb/photos/israel/israel_photos_37.html ) are far from dull compromise designs.

While not directly about webdesign, “Design Through Dialogue” does offer a way of dealing with throes difficult client – designer relationships, without leading to dull compromise designs and while designing we pull on inspiration for all sources so while should we not pull on ideas from other design disciplines when dealing with clients?

“Design Through Dialogue” is currently in both hard and paperback, in the UK, and is due to be released in the US in December 2009.

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