[Sigia-l] Re: [spam] Re: The Value of "IA" or Whatnot, was Re: [Sigia-l] The New Nielsen?

[Thomas Vander Wal]

I hope the following is somewhat coherent at this late hour (post proposal
writing and wonderful DC-IA meeting)...

I am finding a lot to agree with in Paula's and Peter's points.  I agree
that most professional sites, other than entertainment sites aim at
providing information to the user so that the user can make a better become
more knowledgeable about a product, the world around them, general research,
etc.  The visual cues in this approach should help find, attract the user,
or as Peter states provide a "useful function".

The role of IA gets muddied in the visual design part of the world, IMHO,
while there is a need for folks that can categorize information and make
information findable and can attract users to information that is of
interest to the user.  Users are flooded with information and often scream
for a means of finding that which they are seeking.  Organizations that
provide information are trying to get their information in front of their
audience so that an information transaction and possibly a business
transaction will take place.  Sites have direct monetary actions based on
the information are particularly interested in getting their audience the
right information. This goal seems to be counter to the desire to keep a
user of the site around with the aim of having them peruse its entirety.
Users come to most sites in search of finding one or a handful of items.

Sites, like magazines, are rarely read in their entirety and the beauty of
the Internet is providing the user the ability to get to what they desire
and offer other elements (on that site or off the site) of interest to the
user.  This task of getting the user to the information that he/she desires
is what permits the IA field to exist.  Many sites and organizations have a
horrible time getting a grasp of the information they capture, maintain and
provide.  The information glut has exacerbated this problem and helping
organizations get their arms around their information and categorize it into
useable structures for the users of the information is a daunting task.
This is a task that requires an IA's skills and there is no other field that
can step into these shoes (as far as I can find) to structure information.

I will let Jakob's Flash money talk for his new views.  Yes, visual
presentation of information can augment findability by attracting a user to
information through visual cues, but visual presentation can not make up for
the failures of poor information structures.  A site can only entertain a
user who is searching in vane for what they desire by masking that sites
failures, but in the end they will not turn to the site for information they
can not find.  I thought we learned these "eyeball and stickiness" lessons
during that dot.com crash.

The folks as 37Signals are riding the wave of Simple design by using only
the visual cues needed to help the user get what they need to get done.
This movement does not preclude pretty and visually appealing, but the point
to help the user "do", not trying to distract the user.

On 7/17/02 12:01 AM, "Peter Merholz" <peterme at peterme.com> wrote:
 
> But, again, I fear talks of aesthetics and emotion and that which seems
> unmeasurable will allow folks to neglect these necessary discussions. Don
> says it better than I do:
> 
>   "I can hear it now: 'Hey, Norman says it's OK
>    to be pretty,' and off people go, feeling free
>    to ignore decades of work by the usability
>    community. That's the wrong lesson to learn
>    from this essay.
> 
>    There are many designers, many design schools,
>    who cannot distinguish prettiness from usefulness.
>    Off they go, training their students to make things
>    pleasant: façade design, one of my designer friends
>    calls it (disdainfully, let me emphasize). True
>    beauty in a product has to be more than skin deep,
>    more than a façade. To be truly beautiful, wondrous,
>    and pleasurable, the product has to fulfill a useful
>    function, work well, and be usable and understandable."
> 
> To me, "useful function" means supporting "doing."

Well quoted and quipped.

-- by the way I am looking for an Enterprise IA for a five to seven week
tour of duty in the Washington, DC area.  This requires cataloging
(mid-level content inventory) of a large enterprise' Internet offerings as
they correspond to business function areas.  Metadata and thesaurus skills
required as are search and extraction skills.  Work should start ASAP. ---

All the best,
Thomas

-- 
www.vanderwal.net

The future is mine, not Microsoft's