[Sigia-l] RE: Sigia-l digest, Vol 1 #930 - 6 msgs

[O'Neill, Todd]

Ah, the nugget!

Peter Merholz said...
>However, there's a key element of IA that has been missing from the 
>media discussion. Namely, "the user". From what I know of media 
>production, apart from testing with audiences after something has been 
>produced, there's little input from "users." I've never heard of a 
>user-centered media process, where themes, concepts, scripts, 
>storyboards, etc., are somehow "tested" on users.

For the corporate/business/industrial media producer UCD does figure, at
least for the best producers. Feature film wanna-bees maybe go for the
LCD (lowest common denominator) but a product marketing, training or
corporate communications piece does have some upfront analysis.

What suffers usually is the backend testing, even with the best
producers. Typically budget is blown by the time a project wraps and the
client thinks the successful result they received was the finished
project, not the effects of the project. That's probably more a factor
in the SME (small/medium enterprise) sector than the large enterprise. 

Selfishly I suppose I'd like to see the media production community
(video, film, disc based multimedia -- oh, especially disc based media!)
come closer to the user experience design community because of the
mature(?), defined processes. But, then I'd like to see the UED
community come closer to the media production community because of the
latter's professional maturity and acceptance in the marketplace. I
think each profession/craft/practice has a lot to learn from the other.

What I'm mot hearing from the list (yet) are practioners in both UED/UCD
AND linear and non-linear, non-web based media (except for Peter and I.)
Are you out there? I would expect not to hear from UED/UCD folks on a
traditional media producers list but I got a sense that this was a more
adventuresome, inquisitive bunch.

Later!


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