Chris Fahey from Behavior Design has an excellent post up discussing the tension that exists on the line between user interface and software design. This is something we deal with internally – that tricky balance to strike with a design-driven approach to building software. What is design exactly? Is it the user interface? Is it the requirements? Does it cover the interactions? Should it inform the architecture / API / construction of the software itself?

The answer to all of the above is “yes”.

If that’s the case, then when mentioned in the context of building software, isn’t design just another word then for all of the inputs to be considered in the process of building software?

I personally struggle the most with the word “design” as a replacement for “interface design”. The qualifier there tells the whole story.

Last, and perhaps controversially, I believe that for software applications (I’m differentiating here from content websites) you cannot separate out the process of designing the user interface any more than you could separate out the process of writing the requirements.  They are both part and parcel of the software you are attempting to build and can only be removed from the process to the detriment of the end product.