Thanks David :-)

A nice man called David tweeted me yesterday with a link to a video of Russell Davies talking about interestingness, size and creativity. In the video, Russell refers to a project I did a couple of years ago for Birdseye. I just wanted to thank David as it's always nice to know there are people out there who share the passions I get out of bed for:-)

I've been thinking about advertising agencies big and small, partly because of the LGFE reunion this thursday and partly because I'm pretty much always stuck in the thick of one or other user-centred design process debate.

I sent the following question to a recruiter this morning as we're talking about maybe working together. I don't know the answer, but I'm pretty sure it's tough for a passionate user experience person to work without discovery...

Here was the question I had in mind:

80% of the magic of user-centered design happens in the discovery phase, prior to the IA proposing the information model for an interface. As most pitches involve going to the client with a ready-made proposal, agencies tend to find it difficult to produce user-centered design. Does your agency have a strategy in place to overcome this challenge?

I suppose the answer is "win the business then shove the IA through the door" but I can't imagine this guy or this guy playing it like that...

Are you a senior agency bod? How do you handle ideas of value, resonance, co-creation and needs assessment? I'm still working on the question :-)