[Sigia-l] RE: tenets, principles, standards

[O'Neill, Todd]

At the risk of re-opening the can of worms that was "AIfIA Goals 2004
Survey Results"...

I agree with some that suggest "guidelines" may be better than
"standards". The discussion seemed to get waaaay down in the weeds very
quickly, to even the licensing concept (oooo! Scary!).

Someone started down the road about using an existing industry as a "for
example" model, and they choose television. But I think they chose a
technology and not a discipline.

I come from the television and video producing world. Ten years ago I
cut my teeth in the CD-ROM multimedia producing/project management
world. For five years I have web produced full time. What I noticed as I
made the transition between producing each medium was how little value
was placed on what had been established before in similar disciplines.

In film and video production there are certain things that are needed to
accomplish the goal of producing a completed program. Most video/film
professionals I think would say you need: a concept (creative treatment,
story, theme, piece of music, etc.); some structure to the content (an
outline, script, etc.); some visualization of the content (a shot list,
a storyboard, a rough edit, etc.). Out the other end of the process
comes a finished product. Not to make light of them, there is also all
the project management ephemera such as a contract, schedules,
sign-offs, invoices that need to be created.

All of these have some form of "standard" applied to them for various
reasons. In some cases guilds like the Writers Guild or the Directors
Guild or the union that controls cameramen, etc. -- even the clients of
these deliverables -- imposed (or very gradually accepted) "standards"
to raise the level of their profession, separate it from the
"non-professionals".

Most motion picture scripts are laid out on a page in a particular way
(with roots in the stage play format) and have a standard page count --
120 pages (a page a minute). Why? The WGA, the studios, the writers.
EVERYONE got used to it that way. 

Industrial films and video, on the other hand, generally lay out scripts
in two columns (visuals and sound) because of their roots in still slide
production. Why not the full width format of the motion picture script?
Because the industrial clients got very used to the picture description
on the left, the narration on the right.

The IA/UXD world has similar constructs: flow diagrams, wire frames,
page mock-ups, prototypes, etc. We can TRY to impose standards on our
clients and our peers but who decides what those are and who "regulates"
them and how are they communicated?

One of the postings used television as a standard. The U.S. television
transmission standard (until recently) was NTSC. That stands for the
National Television Standards Committee. But NTSC is also widely known
(in the "biz") as Never The Same Color. Because the standard has been
deficient since it was established. But it was adopted and they started
making televisions with it and then they kludged color information into
what was a B&W standard and then...

So what if the IA community creates a deficient standard? We won't have
television manufacturers or broadcasters on our side fighting to keep it
like NTSC did against HD. We're stuck with it.

Why not recognize that we have some practices in the IA discipline that
work pretty well and leave it at that? Teach and communicate what those
concepts and general practices are to students and clients. Allow
innovators to add to the efficiency or beauty or value of the
deliverables that are the end products of those practices (JJG objects,
wire frames, etc.) and move forward.

If we have to define ourselves based on standardized processes and
deliverables, well, it ain't pretty. Soon you'll have someone coming in
to try to automate what is essentially an human art. (Yow! That sounded
kind of Luddite.) There is a place for everything. We are young as a
discipline. Let's grow into our craft a bit more and find other ways to
justify our existence or demonstrate our value. Let's not avoid the
bigger challenge of translating the practice of our discipline to the
needs (bottom line and otherwise) of our clients and customers.
Standards are short term thinking that can hinder us. Communication and
education is long term thinking that has greater potential...IMHO.

Todd O'Neill Web Producer USAA Interaction Design and Architecture 
210-913-8312 todd.oneill at usaa.com 
These opinions mine not those of USAA. 
"The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer." Peter
Drucker