[Sigia-l] Rant about bad IA practice.

[Stewart Dean]

Christina,

My aim was to test my personal theories, compare notes and get a bit of a dicussion going.  My navel gazing has been through the projects I've worked on. I've tended to have tight budgets, tight time scales and real things to deliver. I value user research and have developed techniques having talked and worked with many IAs and user experience people. If it's good practice and it works I'm happy to embrace it and use it.

What I am doubting is some practices that I have seen others use but no really work better than other techniques. Task analysis works better than card sorting for many projects, but has it's place when you need to create large collections of information. Eye tracking is expensive, unnatural and time consuming and indirect when compared to a good grasp of psychology and the ability to talk to users, although it's not as flash as half silvered mirrors and hi tech solutions.  I have never done eye tracking any more than I've set up a focus group - it was not appropriate for any of the projects I've worked on.

If you feel I'm wrong then there is an open invite to explain why. i'm not going to beat my chest about this but I am very much a practitioner and my views are based on listening to others and through real project experience. 

 So take the message in the spirit it was intended (my message was sincere and direct, and not an attempt to troll but to provoke response for positive reasons).

Cheers

Stewart Dean




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> Date: Sat, 28 Oct 2006 10:49:57 -0700
> From: cwodtke at eleganthack.com
> To: sigia-l at asis.org
> Subject: Re: [Sigia-l] Rant about bad IA practice.
> 
> 
> >
> > >There are a few things I want to get off my chest.  Now I may be wrong about these but I obvously think I'm not. >Here's a list. 
> >   
> Is this based on anything, except your own navelgazing? Have you done 
> card sorting, or eyetracking? Did you consider maybe you just don't know 
> what you are talking about, and maybe you should ask practitioners *why* 
> they value these things rather than rant about it?
> 
> And listmembers: you are feeding the troll.
> 
> The French said it best: "I don't want to talk to you no more, you empty 
> headed animal food trough wiper! I fart in your general direction! Your 
> mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!"
> 
> http://www.tv.com/monty-pythons-flying-circus/monty-python-and-the-holy-grail/episode/192612/trivia.html#quotes 
> 
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