[Sigia-l] Timeline

[paula.thornton]

Shocked? I am, indeed. The rebuttals that have been exchanged have very
distinct hints of skill shortages that I believe to be critical for serving
successfully as a professional in this space.

The comments seem to be very 'seated' in 'face-value' analysis. Indeed, this
is a detrimental practice short-coming of many IAs I have worked with in the
past (many of them too short-sighted to become involved in discussions such
as these to hone their skills and broaden their perspectives).

I already responded to Scott offline, pointing out that he missed my intent
to offer the History Channel example based on the value of the 'components',
complete with admission that there was plenty of room to improve the visual
design.

I was more shocked by Eric's (a seasoned, respected professional) response:
Unfortunately, many museums use the timeline as a convenient collection of
dated shoeboxes in which they can throw whatever content they happen to have
lying around. The History Channel timeline struck me as one of these.

Hardly. Let's talk about basic IA goals for the people we are entrusted to
defend the rights and needs of: the recipients. One primary goal is to help
the visitor achieve their goal with the lowest 'cost'. The most predominant
'cost' from an economic perspective in this equation is time. As I pointed
out to Scott, most of the flash examples never completed loading in less
than 5 minutes on my machine...so without addressing the first goal,
'glitzy' becomes a throw-away...it has no value to the recipient.

The Wrigley's example was one of the few exceptions to this (quick load,
clear delivery - interaction). I stumbled on the History Channel example
because I was in search of another example former colleagues had done which
was close to the Wrigley's example. The 'value' of the History Channel has
many angles of exemplification:
+ there are plenty of situations where 'low-tech' is the only option
available to the solution...this was a good example to address just such a
situation (set of requirements).
+ it reduced the cost of 'find' to the recipient. An entire year was
represented in 'snippets' of teasers, as opposed to the Wrigley's solution
which offered single-threaded content. Again, another option.

The readers of this list should work harder to understand the distinctions
between learning from 'core concepts' and being expected to be spoon-fed
complete answers. The most truly innovative practitioners, find critical
'grains of sand' that they then use to improve on and turn into pearls.

And as my final 'get a clue' lecture, come back at me with your own
statistics, but from what I've seen, the need to address 'entertainment'
value as a primary goal for interaction design is truly 'desired' by the
visitors in less than 5% of the instances. Are you telling me that like the
training provided by Western Medicine, that you really want to hone your
skills to address less than 5% of the needs of those you want to serve?  It
is argued that doctors are specifically 'honed' to address 'emergency'
situations...high trauma and physical damage...and are quite inept at
addressing cross-systemic failures...for which most of our medical distress
can be accounted.

There is high demand for our group of practitioners to be uniquely adept at
providing 'out of the box' options for consideration. Apparently, those who
have those skills should highlight them more intensely on their resumes,
because it looks like the competition is thin...

Paula Thornton
Interaction Design Strategist