[Sigia-l] Re: Putting the "Graphic" back with "Designer" (was:the lesser importance of home pages)

[Jared M. Spool]

At 07:27 PM 1/2/2006, Eric Scheid wrote:

>On 3/1/06 9:05 AM, "Listera" <listera at rcn.com> wrote:
>
> >> No-one said we had to keep specializing...
> >
> > You did: "That's why I like working in a team setting, with team 
> members who
> > specialize in neatly designated compartments."
>
>bollocks.
>
>He's saying a degree of specialisation is useful, but there's no point in
>going down the slippery slope you argued. In medicine there are
>Ear/Nose/Throat specialists ... but there are remarkably few Left Outer Ear
>specialists, nor Right Nostril specialists.

I did meet last week with an orthopedic surgeon who only works on hands and 
fingers. (All 10 fingers and both hands, though.) He's world-renown for his 
knowledge and experience dealing with hands.

He works in a department at the Lahey Clinic which has 20+ orthepedic 
surgeons, so they can afford one or two that specialize. 15 miles away is 
Emerson Hospital which doesn't have any dedicated orthepedic surgeons 
directly on staff, let alone someone who specializes only in hands. (They 
do have 7 doctors from local practices who will treat orthopedic cases at 
Emerson when necessary.)

Specialization is a luxury an organization can afford when they have a 
large quantity of people with the right skills. A solo design/ux 
practitioner in a small IT organization would not have the same luxury -- 
that individual would need to be a jack-of-all-trades, possibly including 
coding, debugging, database administration, and project management.

As with almost everything else in our field, gross generalizations rarely 
work. (That's a gross generalization in itself, but you get the point.)

Jared

p.s. The Otolaryngology (or Ear/Nose/Throat) department at Mass. Eye & Ear 
has 13 specialty departments, including 11 doctors who specialize in 
treating sore throats:
http://www.meei.harvard.edu/search/display_dis.php?&disease=sore%20throat&iRadio=OTO 
Ah, the luxury.




Jared M. Spool, Founding Principal, User Interface Engineering
4 Lookout Lane, Unit 4d, Middleton, MA 01949
978 777-9123   jspool at uie.com  http://www.uie.com
Blog: http://www.uie.com/brainsparks