Terry Winograd

Terry Winograd has written much about the over arching goals and approaches linked to good design. Similarly to Don Norman, he is just as content to speak of door knobs and light switches as computer interfaces. But it is precisely this aspect that has made him so influential in the field.

"People are thought of as inhabitants rather than users of buildings... we [should] approach software users as inhabitants, focusing on how they live in the spaces that designers create... our goal is to situate the work of the designer in the world of the user."1

His research in software design, he concedes, is actually very broad in perspective. Emerging devices and their accompanying interfaces, such as audio spaces, wearable computers, and immersive environments all benefit from interface construction from a design, as opposed to an engineering perspective. But what exactly is his, "design perspective"?

  • Design is conscious
    In most successful designs, conscious design is at work in creating the individual pieces and relationships that make up the whole.

  • Design keeps human concerns in the center
    A multidimensional understanding of what concerns users is critical to an understanding of where new software and electronic technologies will lead in practice

  • Design is a conversation with materials
    Designing is not so much a process of careful planning and execution as it is a conversation, in which the conversing partner - the design object itself - can generate unexpected interruptions and contributions

  • Design is creative
    Design is inherently messy... spontaneous, unpredictable, and hard to define.

  • Design is communication
    To succeed in designing, we need to understand how designers convey meaning; understand their design language.

  • Design has social consequences
    ...we must make social and political dimensions an explicit part of the design dialog.

  • Design is a social activity
    It is a mistake to fall into the assumption that successful designs rest solely on a creative individual... the designer operates in a much larger setting.

    In addition to teaching at Stanford, Terry Winograd is a regular consultant of Interval research, and is a principle investigator on the Stanford Digital Libraries Project.

    He is a founding member and former president of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, and is on the national advisory board of the Association for Software Design.

    Below are a few links to his current courses at Stanford.

    References:

    List of Publications by Winograd: