[Sigia-l] Information Architecture and Usability Professions

[Jared M. Spool]

At 08:59 AM 9/4/2006, Eric Reiss wrote:
>Ziya wrote:
>"Yo, Jared, who evaluates the usability dudes' work?"
>
>- - - - -
>
>er...wouldn't that be the users themselves? Measured, for example, by
>examining web stats and conversion rates - assuming someone actually
>followed the usability dude's recommendations.

Man, we've gotten into some silly threads, but this is one of the silliest 
of recent days. Since this is apparently a question posed to me, I'll take 
a stab at it:

First, in my mind, the employer evaluates the "usability dudes'" work. 
Either they contribute to the success of the business or they don't. If 
they don't, they should be canned, plain and simple. And the same is true 
with everyone else on the team.

Now, this topic is an "apples and oranges" discussion and something I've 
been touring the country talking about lately. So, here's the speech:

Information Architecture is a discipline looking at how information should 
be organized.
Usability Practice is a discipline looking at how design effects behavior, 
which designs produce desired behaviors, and how to measure both the design 
and the behaviors.
Interaction Design is a discipline looking at the alternatives to design 
and how to apply them to different problems.

(You can have your own definitions for the above if you want, but that's 
not my point, so, for the sake of this silly thread, let's just go with 
mine, ok?)

In contrast:

Information Architects are people who practice and study information 
architecture.
Usability Professionals are people who practice and study usability practice.
Interaction designers are people who practice and study interaction design.

Our research shows that creating a product or service does *NOT* require 
information architects, usability professionals, or interaction designers. 
However, it also shows that successfully creating a product or service does 
seem to require people who understand something about information 
architecture, usability practice, and interaction design.

Our research also shows there are specialists and there are generalists. 
Specialists are people who spend practically all their time working in a 
single discipline, learning all the nooks and crannies of it, applying 
their knowledge and expertise to accomplish the work.

Generalists are people who take a broad approach and regularly bounce 
between disciplines. Since they don't have the luxury of diving in deep, 
their knowledge is going to be more "surface level." But, unlike the 
specialists, because they move from discipline to discipline more 
regularly, they will have knowledge and expertise about the relationships 
between the disciplines that you typically don't find from the specialists.

(Don't not confuse "specialization" with "compartmentalization." A 
specialist has enough knowledge and skills in the surrounding disciplines 
to do the work, when called upon. They won't excel at it, but they could do 
it. A compartmentalist can only do one thing and is completely useless in 
the other disciplines. The example I frequently use is a Orthopedic Hand 
Surgical Specialist. Though he has spent the last 30 years working on very 
little other than people's hands and wrists, he could do other types of 
orthopedic surgery, and, because he's trained in medicine, you'd want him 
to deliver the baby if he was the only doctor on the island after the 
crash. He's a specialist, not a compartmentalist.)

The presence of specialists is not required. In fact, it's a luxury that 
can only be supported by the local economy. Not all teams can afford 
specialists. In fact, in our studies, we've found that most can't. So, they 
have to live with only generalists (and in many cases, a single 
generalist). Specialists can only exist if the workload and budget supports 
a large enough team where people can specialize. (We don't have exact 
numbers on this yet, but I'm guessing it's less than the top 10% of 
organizations.)

So, what makes this thread silly is the premise that somehow one specialty 
"evaluates" the work of the other specialties. In our research, this isn't 
what happens in the successful teams. In the successful teams, each person 
brings their skills, knowledge, and expertise to the table and, 
collaboratively, they make decisions on how to go forward. If usability 
professionals evaluate anything, it's whether the design actually produced 
the desired user behaviors. And if they are doing that, for the first time, 
after the design is already completed, then they probably aren't very good 
usability professionals. (They certainly aren't exhibiting the skills, 
experience, and knowledge that would prevent such an egregious waste of 
design and development resources.)

So, that's my speech.

Happy Labor Day.

Jared

Jared M. Spool, Founding Principal, User Interface Engineering
510 Turnpike Street, Suite 102, North Andover, MA 01845
978 327-5561   jspool at uie.com  http://www.uie.com
Blog: http://www.uie.com/brainsparks