Dueling and Design : How fencing and UX are quite alike by Ben Self.
From the post:
The other day I was leaving the office and mentally switching gears from the design work I had been doing all day to the fencing class I was about to teach that night. During my commute, I thought to myself, “It’s time to stop thinking like the end user and start thinking like a fencer.”
Suddenly realizing the similarities between my job and my hobby, I found myself pondering the connections between fencing and UX Design further over the next few weeks. I discovered more parallels than I had expected, although the first thought I had was that the goals are almost completely opposite.
When I am fencing, I want to frustrate my opponent and keep him from accomplishing his goals. When I am designing an interface, I want to encourage the user and help them accomplish their goals. It occurred to me, however, that while the final results are polar opposites, many of the methods used for assessing how best to achieve those opposite ends are actually very similar.
All these years I thought interfaces were designed to prevent me from accomplishing my goals. An even closer parallel to fencing. 😉
Ben does an excellent job of drawing parallels but I am particularly fond of his suggestion that you know your opponent/users. It’s hard work, which is probably why you don’t see it very often in practice.
What other activity do you have that illustrates principles for an interface, communication with others, or other semantic type activities?