[Sigia-l] Strategists (What do they do that IA's don't?)

[Chung, Hedahne]

My sense is that an IA's tools and deliverables are primarily qualitative in
nature and in application, whereas the focus and outputs of a strategist is
primarily quantitative in focus. However, there is clearly a place for the
integration of qualitative and qualitative information in understanding
whether or not the needs of the user are being met. Important information is
learned when I employ user scenarios, wireframes, usability testing
techniques, etc. to ensure that a proposed flow works, but I am just as
interested in information such as conversion rates, booking statistics,
revenue numbers and number of calls to customer service. For better or for
worse, this sort of information is often used as an IA proof of concept, and
from my perspective it's actually a somewhat exciting development.   

Hedahne


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-----Original Message-----
From: Joe 10 [mailto:joe at joe10.com]
Sent: Tuesday, November 12, 2002 1:17 PM
To: Thomas.Donehower at nethodcircle.com; sigia-l at asis.org
Subject: Re: [Sigia-l] Strategists (What do they do that IA's don't?)


At 10:24 AM -0500 11/12/02, Thomas.Donehower at nethodcircle.com wrote:
>"What does a strategist do that actually provides value, that an IA doesn't
>or isn't already responsible for?"
>

I a maturing marketplace where a Web site is but one of many business 
channels which must work in harmony to realize the business 
objectives and meet customer needs, the increased opportunity for 
meaningful customer contact means that someone must oversee the 
efforts to move customers between channels so they benefit from the 
one which best fits there current needs.

This sort of thinking may not be best fit for an IA; IA's are not 
(necessarily) primarily trained in marketing strategies. It also may 
well not be a best fit for an MBA as they are not necessarily attuned 
to the possibilities of the Web and its capabilities.

That's not to say that an IA won't have the capacity to do these 
things, but it's much like saying "why doesn't an IA do the work of 
the DBA" or "Why doesn't the Interaction Designer do graphic design 
too". They can, it just depends on the size of the project and team.

It also comes down to what you want to do with your daylight hours!

>I'm not trying to belittle strategists, I'm just trying to get a better
>understanding of the value they bring to the table outside of IA. Here's my
>list so far:
>
>Strategist:

Here are a couple...

- Determination of opportunities for cross channel promotion
- Plan points of conversion and redirection to other business channels
- Develop plans to avoid or ameliorate the effects of cross-channel
cannibalism
- Define metrics for measuring success of cross channel and marketing 
strategies
- Analysis of the results of collected data and other measurements

There are more, but I have to get back to things... Hopefully this 
showed that these tasks are clearly outside of the pure definition of 
IA. Outside of Marketing too. Different stuff.

later,
/Joe

>
>IA
>-User and stakeholder research
>-Gather and validate business goals
>-Gather and validate user goals
>-Interviews
>-Ethnography
>-Persona development
>-Mental model development
>-Site audit
>-Competitive analysis
>-Classification systems
>-Heuristic evaluation
>-Site map
>-Interaction flows
>-Wireframes
>-Usability testing and reporting

-- 
Joe Tennis
Information Design Honcho
Joe 10 Group
2430 5th Street
Studio L
Berkeley, CA 94710
510-649-1744
joe at joe10.com
http://www.joe10.com
Interaction Design | Information Architecture | Usability Consulting
for Web, Wireless and Interactive Media
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