[Sigia-l] IA and Traditional Software

[George Olsen]

Avi Rappoport said:
> At 1:39 PM -0400 8/2/02, Gent, Andrew wrote:
> Most of the software I worked on didn't have enough content to
> require significant organization.

This is why traditional IT doesn't really get the concept of IA when they
move into Web projects where now there _is_ content.

> Some aspects of IA relate pretty
> well, like labeling, categories and navigation

Labeling and categorization are crucial aspects that have often been
overlooked in traditional software. I saw a great case study from Kevin
Mullet and Darrell Sano about how they standardized Macromedia's
interfaces across multiple products. One of the key things was to
reorganize the menus by _tasks_ rather than by _features_, which allowed
consistent categories ("View," "Modify," "Text," etc.) even though the
specific items within these menus could vary widely.

Sounds obivous but contrast it to something like Lotus Notes, which earned
its own section within the UI Hall of Shame. While Notes has more than
it's share of quirky interactions, half the challenge is just finding the
action you need to perform.
_____________________________________________________________________
George Olsen                           george at interactionbydesign.com
User Experience Architect                                310-993-0467