[Sigia-l] Web Developers

[Alexander Johannesen]

Alex wrote:
> > Best Practice with using Visio stems from what IT puts on peoples
> > machine.

On 2/8/06, Listera <listera at rcn.com> wrote:
> Therein lies the problem.

So ... er, ignorant people use tools in ignorant ways, while smart
people use them smartly, and I still can't for the life of me
understand what Visio has got to do with best practices in either good
or bad ways.

> Though Visio itself had some major issues *as
> applied to design* too. But I don't think you want me to start getting
> re-exercised about that, do you? :-)

Well, actually it would be good to know why Visio gets such a beating,
especially when we're talking about design. To me, I can design on a
piece of toilet-paper, Visio or by making harumphy sounds while in
meetings, it really doesn't matter to the end result. If people use
tools badly, you get sub-par results, but only by the paper delivered,
not by interpretation and other means of communication. What's wrong
with Visio in terms of design? Features? GUI? The standard templates?
I can design good stuff with all of what there is in Visio right now,
while my mum probably can't. Are you simply referring to Visio being a
popular application that somehow does something less than your
favourite alternative?

> > Including a change for the worse?
>
> One hopes for the best. But even the fact that the status quo has been
> questioned is an opening. Just like the IT example above. Only a few years
> ago, as a corporate citizen you didn't dare question IT. Now you can.
> Tomorrow it'll be that much easier to actually refuse some of their insane
> policies wrapped in dogma and self-preservation.

But given the nature of work IA's do, aren't you kinda preaching to
the choir on this list, then? Seriously, an IA will have to question
pretty much anything in order to do good work (at least, any type of
information, however you want to define that). Are you simply telling
us all to work better, smarter, harder? Because, you know, those
general suggestions can be a bit too general for a specialist list at
times ... and I've seen signs of intelligence here, too. :) Are you
simply trying to catch the newbies?

> Until about a year ago, I used to get a lot of off-list email here from
> people genuinely flabbergasted that I'd even question this or that sacred
> cow.

Hmm. I'd suggest that people question any sacred cow. But why private
mails? Are we yet again back to people being afraid of loosing face /
cred / mind over talking about something as arbitrary as IA? There is
no one single answer to anything. Isn't that one of the first things
any IA learn?

> A lot of "best practices" stuff. People incredulous that one could do
> things differently or that a lot of the faith-based stuff floating around
> could be successfully ignored.

Well, if the answer is 'card sorting' to everything (yeah, poor
attempt to try to drag Donna into this discussion :), clearly there
are better alternatives ... but you know, as long as card sorting
provides *any* kind of value, it isn't so bad; It creates a helluva
better result than leaving info design to programmers. People's got to
start somewhere, and I don't belive in that progrom that says that
people will stay dumb if working with dumb tools; only dumb people
that cannot ever become smarter would have that problem. Maybe Visio
isn't the best, but it delivers better than toilet-paper (most of the
time).

Maybe you're referring to people not thinking outside of the box,
which hardly is constrained to our little part of the universe. People
are smart and stupid in every camp..

> I usually took the time to explain, my POV. Like I said, I am patient. :-)

Good thing for us impatient ones, I suppose. :)


Alex
--
"Ultimately, all things are known because you want to believe you know."
                                                         - Frank Herbert
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