Ambidextrous Quotes

A couple of quotes from Ambidextrous, the premier issue.

David Northway, a design engineer:

Often in ‘real’ design, much of the challenge is determining which problem is the right one to solve and how to best apply engineering tools to the problem at hand, whereas most of the time in [engineering] school students are working to solve problems given to them using the engineering tolls they’ve learned.

(Whereas in software development, the attitude often is that the problem is obvious and merely has to be mapped.)

Northway answering what he considers to be the most important concepts for beginners to learn about design:

That no matter what you know, you really know nothing at the start of every design problem. Every problem needs to be approached as if you know nothing, resulting in questioning all your assumptions, questioning the way things have ‘always’ been done in the past, and asking what can be done with the problem at hand based on what is known at the time the problem is being addressed.

(The reflective practitioner.)

Jeralyn Reese, user-experience designer, on what makes a good designer:

A good designer is someone who can clearly understand the problem statement, state requirements independent of implied solutions, keep the design space open as long as possible, preserve ambiguity, iterate, and gather continual feedback from the user.