[Sigia-l] Can UI designers kill people?

[Listera]

"Benjamin Speaks" wrote:

> Also, the web space is associated with IA because in traditional software
> environments many old-school engineers associate GUI standards (like Windows
> XP) with the concept of usability...which is correct but incorrect.

There are GUI standards on Windows?:-)

You're absolutely on the money here. In the enterprise world I'm familiar
with, more IA and interface design/architecture jobs are "lost" to
programmers who are asked to wear that second hat.

Here, I went to Dice.com and typed in "gui developer designer" and the very
first entry is:

Title: 

GUI Designer - developer

Skills: 

Refinement of a user interface through several iterations
- an interface that involved navigation
- an interface that involved annotation or classification
- an interface that involved multiple simultaneous updateable views of the
same "workspace" 
Evaluation of a user interface through studies of real users

Job description:

Position is responsible for design, development and enhancement of Java
user-facing code. This person will architect and implement user interfaces
for our next-generation tools for business professionals and for application
developers, with responsibility for both code, usability and learnability
issues, including interactive performance, aesthetics, and integration with
user experience guidelines of base level environments (IDE or Office tool).
Candidates should be able to explain the design principles and tradeoffs
considered, and the end result, of previous work on GUI Design and
Development.

Requirements:
[Highlights]

Rapid prototyping in Java with Swing (Level4 - Can perform without
assistance. Has in-depth knowledge)

Eclipse SWT (Level3 - Can perform with assistance. Has applied knowledge)
 
DOM and SAX API programming (Level3 - Can perform with assistance. Has
applied knowledge) 
 
Concepts and standards of XML (Level3 - Can perform with assistance. Has
applied knowledge)

J2EE development - EJBs, JSPs (Level3 - Can perform with assistance. Has
applied knowledge)

Etc.

In other words, you have to be a programmer.

Now, you might say this is probably some small company lost its way in the
job req definition wonderland. Indeed, it's a company some people here often
put up as the beacon of hope for our profession: IBM.

----
Ziya

Architecture is politics.