[Sigia-l] The value of an IA

[Patrick Neeman]

On Jan 26, 2006, at 11:35 AM, Timothy Karsjens wrote:

> They hired a "major" creative firm to do the UI work and they hired  
> the "best of the best" for the development team.  The development  
> team put together a very aggressive and doable timeline to get the  
> application to market.  The creative firm put together a quote that  
> was four times as much money, time and people as the development  
> team.  ... In the end, the developers ended up launching the  
> application on time, with few bugs, and they had *not* received one  
> deliverable from the creative team.!
> The creative firm was still in the "discovery" phase and by the  
> time they actually delivered anything, the users had already been  
> using the application for half a year and refused to allow any  
> changes, as the interface was, amazingly enough, simple to use, not  
> flashy, and it was *fast*.

So the client was feeding requirements to both the development team  
and the UI creative team? Or was the UI creative team just skinning  
the app? It sounds like the dev team steamrolled the creative team,  
or the creative team was just more interested in billing hours.

> If you assume, based on anecdotal feedback from major clients, that  
> this has happened in more than one place (Hello, BestBuy.com), then  
> we are faced with a hardship in this area.  Those of us that are  
> *good* Information Architects are known as being able to wear the  
> multiple hats, and are now expected to do more, and we are given  
> different titles.  To provide a personal example; I used to be  
> called an Information Architect.  Now, part of my job  
> responsibilities include requirements management, building UI  
> specs, and testing.  I make more and I am called a "Product Manager".
>
> ...

> Defending information architecture and information architects is  
> also very difficult, as this is a very closed community and word  
> gets around very, very fast.

My two cents:

I'm lucky to be on a very large project where there's a definate need  
for IA, but part of it comes down to the fact that the people on this  
lisrt can't agree on what IA is, and some of the people define it  
multiple ways to sell more books and more conferences, or to get  
around the fact that many of us (including myself) come from  
backgrounds other than IA and fell into this.

Additionally, the job of Information Architect is to defend the user,  
but sometimes IAs go overboard without realizing that  the users  
goals have to be meshed with the goals of the business at hand,  
because at the end of the day, if they are paying for your services,  
the site has to make money, right?

P@

Patrick Neeman
pat at nexisinteractive.com

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