[Sigia-l] IA for non-web based projects

[Everett, Andy]

I agree!  It seems to me that focus groups that both TV advertising and
Commercial TV conduct before airing a commercial or a TV show is a form of
user-centered testing. Taking it one step further isn't the previews, tech
rehearsal, dress rehearsal that plays and musicals go through  before it is
opened to the public constitute Quality Assurance testing?

I think the essence of Information Architecture from the user-centered
design perspective has been around since humankind has wanted to elicit a
controlled response from another human. Is that what we are doing by
creating video, audio and web content in a certain way, designing cues into
our systems that elicit a certain response? In Lou Rosenfeld's three circles
Venn diagram of Content, Context and User just substitute Audience for User
and IA still intersects in the middle.

Andy
-----Original Message-----
From: Listera [mailto:listera at rcn.com]
Sent: Thursday, May 13, 2004 10:52 AM
To: SIGIA-L
Subject: Re: [Sigia-l] IA for non-web based projects


"Peter Merholz" wrote:

> I've never heard of a user-centered media process, where themes, concepts,
> scripts, storyboards, etc., are somehow "tested" on users.

The notion that unless something is "tested" on users it cannot be
"user-centered" is fundamentally wrong.

So is the notion that the film and TV industries, for example, haven't been
testing products before, during and after production for decades, whether
it's a TV commercial tested for multiple markets, direct marketing material
for multiple demographics or a Hollywood film for different endings via
focus groups.

For years here and elsewhere, I have been fighting against the crazy notion
that IA started with a book a few years ago or that it's web-bound or that
it's digital-only.

There's Design and then there's Development. All the rest of the alphabet
soup of the month and minutely-carved titles proliferation may sell books
but, fortunately, doesn't change the fundamental nature of Design...in any
profession.

----
Ziya

Design is the art of gradually applying constraints
until only one solution remains.

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