[Sigia-l] Finding and Choosing a Consultant

[Jacqui Olkin]

Laura,

I specialize in both information architecture and usability analysis and 
testing. Feel free to contact me off list for information.

Jacqui

Jacqui Olkin
Olkin Communications Consulting
jacqui at olkincommunications.com
571-643-6020 ph.
703-834-5653 fax
www.olkincommunications.com

web . print . content . strategy





>From: Laura Norvig <lauran at etr.org>
>To: sigia-l at asis.org
>Subject: [Sigia-l] Finding and Choosing a Consultant
>Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2007 12:16:01 -0800
>
>Our organization is planning a major website re-design (and we
>desperately need it) which will also involve a few iterations of
>usability studies.
>
>Senior management initially tried to task our in-house team with
>designing the usability study, but we are about to vehemently argue
>that this is not realistic, nor will it yield the best results. Part
>of me is thinking that we need not just a usability tester, but an IA
>to oversee the entire redesign project.
>
>Our internal team has great instincts for IA (though you wouldn't
>know it by viewing our website, which has grown haphazardly and has
>been subject to many uncontrollable external pressures), but I know
>from my dabblings into the blogs, books, and postings here of
>professional IAs, that we could really benefit from a professional
>project manager - at least to interpret the results of user testing
>and get on track with an initial re-design.
>
>So here, finally, is my question. How do I go about gathering
>information for senior management on the wide range of costs we could
>be facing? I know individuals here cannot post their own fee
>structures, but perhaps you could anser the following
>-where do we begin looking for consultants?
>-do some consultants do both IA and usability testing design?
>-how do we go about getting quotes (or better yet just ballpark
>figures without taking the time to get quotes)?
>-what existing literature on finding and choosing IAs/usability study
>folks do you recommend?
>
>Here is our URL, just to give you a sense of the size of the project
>http://nationalserviceresources.org
>
>
>(In case any of you are wondering who I am, I was an avid reader of
>this list for many years starting at the beginning of this decade but
>I had to change my settings to nomail because so much of my business
>life is consumed by email already. I am a librarian with a passion
>for quality IA and quality search.)
>--
>Laura Norvig, MLIS
>"Intelligent Human Agent"
>lauran at etr.org
>------------
>IA Summit 2007:  Enriching IA
>Rich Information, Rich Interaction, Rich Relationships
>March 22-26, 2007, Las Vegas, NV
>www.iasummit.org
>-----
>When replying, please *trim your post* as much as possible.
>*Plain text, please; NO Attachments
>
>Searchable Archive at http://www.info-arch.org/lists/sigia-l/
>
>
>
>
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