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

[Andrew Hinton]

Agreed. I really don't think that IA and usability concerns EVER go away.
They just change to fit the context.

Anybody who's given a project that's meant for "fun and exploration" should
visit Disney World (or Land, depending on your coast) and really look
around. Is there any place that's more about fun and exploration?? But pay
attention to how everything is labeled, how it is arranged, how the
architecture encourages certain paths over others.

If you were going to build a theme park, you'd most certainly do a hell of a
lot of user observation & testing along the way. Not paying attention to
those concerns would be malpractice.

Just because something is about Fun and Exploration, that doesn't give the
designer license to become all oblique and obtuse. Design is not about
self-expression. 

This isn't Art. It's Design.

<total change of topic>
Speaking of which, I tried to find a reference somewhere on the AIGA site to
the Experience Design advance, and to their mailing list. Couldn't find it.
Not anywhere. Had to search the site to find the ED group. Still couldn't
find a reference to the mailing list. (I confess I haven't visited it yet,
and was curious finally to check it out, and didn't know it was a Yahoo
group.) 


After giving up at the AIGA site itself, I searched Google, and the first
thing that came up for AIGA's mailing list for the advance was its listing
ON THE IAWIKI!!!

I believe Eric and the rest deserve a pat on the back.
</total change of topic>

::peterme at peterme.com::wrote on 7/17/02 12:01am:


> 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."
> 
> --peter
> 

-- 
:: s y m e t r i ::
andrew.hinton ÷ information.architecture ÷ [ahinton at symetri.com]