[Sigia-l] RE: IA Practice Maturation

[Andrew Otwell]

On 4/21/02 6:01 PM, "sigia-l-request at asis.org" <sigia-l-request at asis.org>
wrote:

> Are the Europeans on the list, or those who've practiced in Europe seeing
> similar trends?  Who drives demand for IAs or IA-type skills in Europe?

Although my perspective here in Berlin is limited, I'd say there is no
*external* demand for IA skills as yet here. As others have mentioned, where
US-based agencies like Sapient or Razorfish set up shop in Germany (Hamburg
and Munich really; AFAIK there were no US agencies in Berlin), IA work has
been introduced and is practiced. I have met a few people here in Berlin
(especially the guys at www.relevantive.de) who are trying to introduce a
user-centered IA process to clients, with moderate success.

Berlin is a bad example, thanks to widespread financial ruin in both the
public and private sector (keeps the rents cheap, though!). In my personal
experience, almost no clients here are asking for IA or usability with the
exception of eBay, which worked with a usability company here that I did
some work with. 

Although the designers, programmers, and project managers I'm working with
now have immediately and enthusiastically "gotten it" when I planned a
thesaurus for our current project, they have no interest in pressing the
client to include usability testing or user research in the project.

andrew