[Sigia-l] Usability Testing comments from Giga

[Boniface Lau]

> From: sigia-l-admin at asis.org [mailto:sigia-l-admin at asis.org]On
> Behalf Of Pittas Marios
>  
> > (a) IAs are often asked by outsiders (colleagues, clients) to back
> > up their expertise with empirical usability tests, instead of
> > having their recommendations accepted as the words of an
> > experienced expert.
> 
> Christopher your comment seems to equate IA with Usability which I
> am sure it is not (a User Interface Design CAN be measured using a
> Usability test)!

When books like "Information Architecture for the World Wide Web"
mistakenly proclaimed that navigation systems and labeling systems are
elements of information architecture, usability tests are naturally
used for testing IA work.


> 
> A good question would of course be: what would a good test be for IA
> work, 

Genuine IA is about structures. Thus, a natural way to test is
subjecting the structural specification to various scenarios to see
how the structures will stand up.


> which of course may or may not require a definition of what IA
> is.. before the whole list goes again into the identity crisis
> again!! :0

IA's identity starts with the word meaning of the term "information
architecture". It is like people's genetic identity. A field not
truthful to its genetic identity, i.e. word meaning, is Identity
Abandoned (IA).


Boniface