[Sigia-l] Web Developers

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Alexander Johannesen:

> Big D...

I'm uncomfortable with Big/Small IA/Design designations as I consider Design
is Design.

>> The problem there does not neatly divide itself simply into
>> visual/infoarch domains. It's an integrated problem, awaiting a
>> fundamental solution.
> 
> Well, I have to ask, by what? Is this by your definition, or by their
> revenue, or some consensus, reports, stock portfolio, their own words,
> an amalgam of all of these, etc?

Yes. :-)

If Design is the art and science of balancing the needs of the client and
the user, as I claim, then it's likely all of those things. Jeff Bezos would
have to tell a Designer what their goals are. As a user I have a feeling why
Amazon.com is failing me, but I wouldn't presume to tell Bezos what he needs
to do, without him giving me the context within which to frame the problem.

> In fact, I think their solution to the Big D problem is to create it as a
> webservice and let the market solve the problem for them.

Now you're talking like a Designer! :-)

Just a couple of hours ago, I was a in a long client meeting. Someone
suggested that we include a gigantic advanced search type of functionality
in the new version of the app I'm designing. If, as a visual designer, I
said we can't because we no longer have the physical real estate for it in
the new app, nobody would take me seriously. Because this wasn't simply a
matter of visual rearrangement, the inclusion of it in the new app would be
tantamount to telling users that the company does not believe in its own
solution. The new app has a new, very compact iconic display that
essentially encapsulates the "intelligence" of what that huge advanced
search page would normally produce, thus rendering the latter obsolete.
Instead of telling the user, here we've done all the work for you (that's
what they told us they want), we'd be saying, take this and do all the work
yourself, in which case the rationale for the new app is suspect.

There'd be no way for me to sell that concept as a visual designer without
wearing BA/IA/etc hats simultaneously. The new iconic solution came about
not as a result of visual experimentation but of deeper thinking into
business, marketing and architectural domains concurrently.

> how you could solve it better than, say, just looking at the IA of the
> site?

Of course not. See above.

> There is nothing wrong with Visio

I made over 60 presentations last year with it (back to Keynote 2 this
year). It wasn't about the tool itself. It was about the bureaucratic
mindset that mandated it; you know, best practices.
 
> Change the people, and the process *will* follow.

I agree. If I can have just one person on this list to look at one thing
differently than they did yesterday and consider change a possibility, I've
done my job. :-)

----
Ziya

Design is doing for a dime what anyone can do for a dollar.