Software as body language

At The Pipeline to your corporate soul, one of the articles that touched me most deeply last year, Alan Cooper spoke of the similarities between body language and software, The report also shows how many companies hire interface design professionals only to make aesthetic changes when in fact they need more profound changes.

Software has become like body language in the way it reveals your inner personality to a patient observer. Your body language always tells the truth, even when you are trying to hide an ugly secret, and it will give you away every time. You simply can't create likable software if you are a dysfunctional company.

The more time I spend on this, the more deeply I believe that changes have to be introduced at the organisational level first, in order to bring them to the surface, i.e. to the interface.

Even if you are able to deliver excellent design work and user experience definition, it is of no use if it is interpreted in the hands of a company with unmotivated workers or crowded boards of directors; it will be rare that the final implementation will resemble anything like the delivered project. That's why I believe less and less in the concept of agreement by deliverables, and more in our integration within the project team.

Otherwise we become interface osteopathsOur day-to-day work is spent correcting the company's “postural vices”, but if the company does not get into good habits, the problems tend to reappear. True transformation is not achieved by aesthetic patches, but by cultivating a culture that allows the interface to genuinely reflect the personality of the organisation.

 

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