[Sigia-l] What makes an IA good at what he or she does?

[gunnar]

These days any mid level manager thinks he can do the structure of the website
redesign.
Redesign is important now, and most redesign done by non professionals is
mostly "add on bonanza with a little visual pop and sizzle". At least that's
what I've seen a couple of times.
So I would say that ability to un-learn and rethink comes in high on the list.

Other than that? Your track record!

Most communications tasks (maybe excluding visual design) are considered by
many as "anyone can do". It is not like programming (if it does not work
you'll know it's the code) where most people step back and let the pro's do
the work.
We still have a hard time giving hard evidence that bad communication in the
form of too specific or too blurred structure, wrong visual cues, flawed
workflow, unclear language etc. have a lot to do with the failure of a
companys business. I know that Jakob Nielsen and company gives us some stuff
to work with, but when the client has a "home grown" solution, they are often
reluctant to recognize that it may be that their skills were not really up the
task. They hate to kill their darlings - just like anyone else.

So maybe persuasive skills, charms, people skills of all kinds should be added
to the list. You simply need to be able to convince your client that he will
love to work with you, learn from the experience and most important: It will
pay and the result will show on the bottom line!

Finally: Not anyone can do a structure. Most people can't even draw a correct
static structure from an outline! I have seen structures done by business
consultants, project managers, ADs etc. Often they can't figure out how to
differentiate between structure and content, hierarchies get skewed etc.
But maybe I've just been unlucky?
:-)

> I would agree with everything Sean said:
> my short list:
> Critical thinker, visual thinker, whole-brain thinker, non-linear
> thinker, ability to move from big picture to detail with ease, and
> I'll repeat what Sean said: ability to easily see connections between
> disparate elements and across systems.


Gunnar Langemark
gunnar at langemark.com