Middle-out design

• Authors: Audrey Crane
• Venue: DUX '05 Proceedings of the 2005 conference on Designing for User eXperience
• Year: 2005

In 2004, Dubberly Design Office (DDO) was contracted by "HandScript" to design a product that enables physicians to enter orders on a handheld device.HandScripts' engineers had been working for a year on an alpha prototype and would continue development during the design of the beta. HandScripts' physicians were supplying content using a tool that mimicked an early interface for the product and enjoyed their roles as designers. The client had a limited budget and needed usability questions answered immediately.As in many design projects, there was not time for a top-down or bottom-up design process. DDO had to work "middle-out".This case study describes how DDO borrowed the software quality assurance cycle and applied it to managing interaction design---resolving both large conceptual questions and detailed, screen-level questions. This "middle-out" approach used a familiar process to achieve fast, quality work.