In my opinion, parcelling out software development in a modular way doesn't work that great neither if you don't have guidelines, api definitions – community enforced styles of doing things.
I think, the same thing works with visual and interaction design. But you'd need a small group of people to make the basic UX decisions and write concise guidelines others can follow. Like Apples «Human Interface Guidelines»[0].
This isn't really purely democratic, but I think it's almost impossible to find the "one way of doing things" if everyone has their say in every micro decision.
For me its much more important to have consistent user experience than the details of it. Its like tab vs spaces in programming or semicolon vs no semicolon in Javascript. I have my personal preferences, but i'm fine with either one as long as it is consistent at least within the project.
Yes your right. But i'm swiss, so a lot of countries dont really feel democratic to me:) Not enough power for the people – too much for those elected.
On the other hand, we, the people are soon to vote whether Switzerland should terminate european human rights contracts. It's insanely democratic and it scares the shit out of me because it might actually get a majority.
You can shoot yourself in the foot with too much democracy.
I thought the UK was the only one insane enough to think human rights were a pick and mix. I recommend Conor Gearty on why the Uk should not pull out (LSE podcasts on iTunes)
We're not directly voting against it. The referendum is carefully titled "Swiss law before foreign law" which would include the human right convention among every international law. The Advocates emotionally argue that the swiss should never be dictated by foreign judges, we can perfectly handle everything ourselves. Unfortunately a lot of people in Switzerland live on ivory towers, thinking their better than everybody else on the planet and agree with that statement.
The right wing fear machinery fed with millions of donation money has really poisoned the political climate over the last decade. Whether you agree with their points, a system like ours, where basically every citizen can trigger a nation wide vote about almost anything (e.g. reintroduction of death penalty) only works if the debates are driven by reason, not populism. The other parties recently jumped on the same train, saying it's the only way to defend against those scare mongers … sigh
I still love our system, it gives the people not only power but also a sense of responsibility. It's not the government that fucked things up – you did. But it doesn't make a country completely immune to dedicated actors with enough influence and money like many believe.
The modern marketing machine has indeed done a number on democracy. And with marketing being related to money, and money invariably congregating on the right, well...
I think, the same thing works with visual and interaction design. But you'd need a small group of people to make the basic UX decisions and write concise guidelines others can follow. Like Apples «Human Interface Guidelines»[0].
This isn't really purely democratic, but I think it's almost impossible to find the "one way of doing things" if everyone has their say in every micro decision.
For me its much more important to have consistent user experience than the details of it. Its like tab vs spaces in programming or semicolon vs no semicolon in Javascript. I have my personal preferences, but i'm fine with either one as long as it is consistent at least within the project.
[0] https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/Documentation/UserEx...