[Sigia-l] IA deliverables defined

[Stewart Dean]

Oh goodie - deliverables.

>From: Davezilla <davezilla at gmail.com>
>To: SIGIA-L <Sigia-l at asis.org>
>Subject: [Sigia-l] IA deliverables defined
>Date: Thu, 9 Feb 2006 20:19:46 -0600
>
>IA deliverables defined. By me.
>
>Stakeholder interviews and requirement analysis:
>Finding out who will fire me when the project goes sour

"Brief? Business goals? Have our marketing profiles instead."


>Content Inventory, also known as content survey or audit:
>Determines how much perfectly usable content the client has so I know
>how much to ignore, throw away and recreate from scratch

Job for intern / junior / poor person internal to client.

Add in 'as is sitemap' because I've never known a company that has a site 
map of their current site. They think it's huge, you map it in a day and 
they look kind of disapointment that their mighty complex website fits on 
two sheets of A3 and has 340 pages (just a bit less than the 1000 page 
estimate).

>Heuristic analysis:
>A sacred industry term that means your navigation sucks and the type
>is hard to read

Aka expert review. Heuristic - nah.

>Competitive analysis:
>Determines why your competition sucks as much as you do

.. review / audit.

>Cognitive mental models:
>Determines how out of touch with reality your users are

Even the name is enough to install fear in a client.

>Personas and audience definition:
>Developing an artificial user to ignore rather than a real one

"Have our marketing profiles instead."


>Card Sorts:
>Legalized form of IA gambling

And should be made illegal.

>Usability sessions:
>Proof that for $100 an hour, under-qualified people will agree to
>pretty much anything you put in front of them

Half silvered mirrors may not create an ethnographical endusive environment 
but it makes the client feel like they're on a cop show.

>Process flows and flow charts:
>Diagrams that prove on paper what no one can create in reality

Also prove how wrong 'the paperless office' was as a concept.

>Site Maps:
>Diagrams of a website that show precisely *where* on a site a user is lost



>Wireframes:
>Unstyled, structural views of websites that are frequently mistaken
>for final comps

'No this is not final layout' stamped across each page helps.


>Prototypes:
>Working models of features that will later prove to be impossible to build

'You get to do prototypes? Who is your client?'

>Design Reviews:
>Formalized reviews of IA research that will subsequently be forgotten
>by everyone

Usualy gets folded in with the scope in my expereince.

>Final Report:
>A thick compendium of knowledge that proves scientifically why
>Information Architects are justified in adding another zero to the
>budget.

UK style: A pint in the pub after the last meeting.

Missed from the list.

User Journeys
Like UML Use Cases only no damn computers get to be actors. Who do you think 
we are - Pixar?

Content Matrix.
What is the matrx? It's a site map done by accountants.

Walkthroughs.
The elevator pitch for the sitemap/wireframes.

Conceptual Models
Because sometimes only Powerpoint will do the job.

Insert other 'hard IA' stuff here that you'll find in the polar bear book.