[Sigia-l] Edward Tufte

[Hankinson, Jody]

Ahhh. So this is more about client education and communication than it is
about Tufte. More along the lines of how clients, who are not in our field,
mistakenly related other fields to our field. How have you handled it to
date?

Not that anyone asked, but here's how I'd handle the situation with one of
my clients.
1. Get clients' opinion on seminar. Did they hear anything new? Struck by
any of his opinions? - they may think he's a crackpot, so no worries.
2. Bring up my own reactions. I really value his insight here, and this is
why. Also, I disagree with him on this bit, and here's why. Include examples
such as market research or unexpected insights discovered in testing. (And
none of the clients knew XYZPDQ was an acronym for an unzipped fly). - I'm
the consultant and sometimes (albeit rarely) that's enough to mitigate.
3. Forward article or book or executive summary of something that supports
my position on why speaker is wrong. Possibly suggest other lectures or
talks. - Who ever said IA was about IA? It's about educating.
4. Contextualize all discussions to specific project. - Because the expert
doesn't personalize and I have that advantage, however slim.

Jody Hankinson 
  phone: 212.852.5051
  email: jhankinson at girlscouts.org 

-----Original Message-----
From: Smith, Denise (Hewitt) [mailto:denise.smith at idea.com] 
Sent: Friday, February 14, 2003 3:09 PM
To: 'Hankinson, Jody'; sigia-l at asis.org
Subject: RE: [Sigia-l] Edward Tufte

<snip>

At the same time, I find him invaluable. I tend to use his books when I need
more help communicating through the interface. When I'm working on process,
I turn to urban planning and consumer studies. When I need inspiration on
categorization, I read in the library sciences. I guess I'm a little
confused as to why we need to dismiss good work that is tangential to our
field.

<snip>

Since I started this thread, I figured I'd answer this point. I don't
dismiss his work - I constantly refernece his books. I got some great
information out of his seminar, but I was dismayed at his rant against user
testing. Quite a number of people from my client companies were there, and I
had to defend myself / interactive methodologies there.  

I do highly respect the man, but I also feel (as with all people in a
position of 'authoritarianship") to not disparage what they do not either
work with or the quality of other people's work... in this case, user
testing. He did have about a 10 minute diatribe about how it was a waste of
money and time. 

Happy Friday!

Denise