[Sigia-l] NYT 7/8/7: Technologys Untanglers: They Make It Really Work

[Stephen Collins]

All

I actually blogged a "check this out" about the story over the  
weekend, as I thought it was notable enough.  In the light of the  
environment at my current major client, I felt it was relevant.

On 10/07/2007, at 2:19 PM, Andrew Boyd wrote:
> I wasn't saying that there is no place in design for usability :) What
> I was saying is that there is more to IA than UCD (and again I have to
> stress that there IS a place for UCD101 concepts in IA).

And you're absolutely right there's a lot more to IA than UCD.  But  
then, you should take a look at some of the environment I'm in.  UCD  
as basic Neilsen usability at best.  No strategic view of IA/UCD, and  
"No time to make it so.  Just keep doing your work and producing  
wordy outputs."  It's IA/UCD as weeds and seeds - maybe the top three  
layers of JJG's stack at best with begrudging lip service paid to the  
rest.

> I just thought we'd moved on from "hey, wow, there is this cool new  
> thing
> called usability" - and as I said to Susan, I may have been wrong here
> if there are still people around who don't get it. I used to hand
> copies of "Don't Make Me Think" to every middle manager and new
> engineer I could force it onto because a lot of them didn't get it
> back then. I just thought we'd moved on from this.

Far from moving on, I think in many clients were actually fighting a  
battle against entrenched *opposition* to IA and UCD.  That's  
certainly the case at a particular client of mine.  It's a constant  
battle to be considered at any point in the process, let alone the  
"UCD, don't you fit in with UAT?" and "IA/UCD is no different to BA".

This is a significant part of my motivation for the talk I'm doing at  
OzIA.

Steve
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